ROBERT 
M  ANT  ELL'S 
ROMANCE 


BY 


BULLIET 


HOLLYWOOD 
DENNY 

T: 
' 


)      4099 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Walter  0.  Schneider 


PROPERTT 

OF 

ALFRED  f .  DFNNJEY 

AIVD 

LEOWGRA  6BAC£  DENNEY 


PROPERTY 

OF 

ALFFFD  f .  DRNNEY 
LEONORA  GR/.CE  Df  NNEV 


Robert  Mantell's  Romance 

BT  C.  J.  BULLIET 


PROPERTT 


OF 


ALFRED  F.  DENNEY 


ANC 


LEONORA  GRACE  DENNflf 


Autographed  Copies  of  the  First  Edition  of 

ROBERT  MANTELVS  ROMANCE 

Limited  to  Two  Hundred  and  Fifty 

of  Which  This  is 


Number . 
Signed: 


Published  March  1918 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S 
ROMANCE 


By  C.  J.  BULLIET 


PROPERTY 

OF 

ALFRED  F.  DENNEY 

. 

LEONORA  GRACE  DENNEY 


BOSTON 
JOHN  W.  LUCE  &  COMPANY 


Copyrighted,  1918 
by  C.  J.  Bulliet 


College 
Library 

7M 


DEDICATED  TO 
MISS  GENEVIEVE  HAMPER 


Whose  Sunny  Disposition  Radiated  at  a  Critical 
Moment  Saved  from  Gloom  and  Despair 

A  GREAT  ACTOR 

And  Whose  Constant  Encouragement 

and  Inspiration  Have  Been 

of  Invaluable  Aid  to 

THE  WRITER 


PROPERTY 

OF 

ALFRED  F.  DFNNEY 

AND 

LEONORA  GRACE  DENNEY 


mC<rj>~«O 
by/8 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Prologue          .          .          .         .          .  v 
Chapter 

I.  Introducing  the  Hero       ...  1 

II.  An  Interruption       ....  8 

III.  The  Ancestral  Tree          ...  12 

IV.  Wheatsheaf  Inn       ....  20 
V.  Early  Education      ....  27 

VI.  Red  Rodger 36 

VII.  A  Stage  Career  Begins  to  Forecast 

Itself 45 

VIII.   Pausing  on  the  Brink  of  Vagabondage  52 

IX.  On  the  Professional  Stage  at  Last     .  59 
X.  Four   Young   Noblemen    at   Fifteen 

Shillings  a  Week        ...  67 

XI.  First  Impressions  of  America    .          .  75 

XII.  Last  Days  in  the  Old  World     .         .  84 

XIII.  Leaping  into  a  Blaze  of  Glory             .  98 

XIV.  A  New  Star 107 

XV.  The  Phantom  of  Shakespeare    .          .118 

XVI.  Exile 140 

XVII.  The  Lowest  Ebb      .         .         .         .149 
XVIII.  A  Romantic  Star  Transformed  into  a 

Classicist     .          .         .         .          .163 

XIX.  Re-entry  into  the  Limelight      .          .  178 

XX.  King  Lear       .....  188 

XXI.  An  Interlude  of  Anecdote          .         .  200 

XXII.  The  Belated  Shower  of  Gold  begins 

to  Trickle 213 

XXIII.  The  Postcriptum      .         .         .         .232 

PROPERTY 

ALFRED],  D^NNEY 

LEONORA  GR/,C£  D6NN£Y 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  Robert  Mantell's  Romance  "     .        .  Frontispiece 

Facing  Pag* 

Early  Recollections 22 

Roles  In  which  Mantell  Startled  New  York  .  100 

Miss  Ethel  Mantell 142 

Mantell  and  His  Famous  Dog  "  Rubber  "   .  158 

Robert  Bruce  Mantell 164 

Lear  and  the  Dead  Cordelia         .        .        .  194 

"  Brucewood,"  the  Mantell  Estate       .        .  214 

A  Master  of  Make-up 218 

Two  Sharply  Contrasted  French  Studies      .  226 

Miss  Genevieve  Hamper      ....  238 

The  Two  Robert  Bruce  Mantells  254 


PROLOGUE. 

Taking  the  Place  of  a  Preface,  which,  how- 
ever, you  are  not  to  Escape,  but  which 
will  Bob  up  Cunningly  during  the  Course 
of  the  Main  Narrative. 

NOTHING   is   more   interesting   to 
mortals   than  gossip    about    their 
fellow  mortals.    Some  philosopher 
may  read  these  words  of  wisdom 
who  finds  his  own  chief  delight  in  the  pur- 
suit of  an  abstract  hobby  unconnected  with 
the  daily  toils  and  delights  of  humankind. 
If  such  should  desire  to  take  up  the  cudgel, 
an  uncompromising  peace-lover  like  myself 
can  only   apologize,  and  excuse  him  from 
my  sweeping  assertion.   I  am  dealing  with 
normal    humanity,    not    with    ever-to-be- 
pitied  freaks. 

I  am  content  that  the  two  charming 
women  who  discuss  their  neighbors'  private 
affairs  over  the  backyard  fence  know  in- 
stinctively and  enthusiastically  I  am  right. 
James  Boswell  knew  it,  too,  and  his  biog- 
raphy of  pompous  old  Dr.  Johnson  will 
endure  as  long  as  there  is  a  language  into 
which  to  translate  it.  Plutarch  knew  it 
when  he  set  down  his  lives  of  the  great 


vi  PROLOGUE 

Greeks  and  Romans;  and  so  did  Suetonious 
when  he  wrote  his  still  more  fascinating 
lives  of  the  Caesars,  so  full  of  intimate 
episodes. 

(Parenthetically,  I  am  delighted  that  the 
postal  authorities  have  not  discovered  Sue- 
tonious, just  as  they  have  not  yet  found  out 
those  other  entertaining  gossips,  Moses, 
Samuel,  King  Solomon  and  St.  Paul.  What 
a  shame  it  would  be,  if  all  those  rare  old 
chatterboxes  were  denied  the  use  of  the 
mails !) 

Herodotus  knew  I  am  right  when  he 
stenciled  on  parchment  the  scandalous 
doings  of  the  ancient  world,  telling,  for 
instance,  how  a  daughter  of  the  Pharaohs 
extracted  from  her  lovers  the  price  of  a 
pyramid.  Michelet  knew  it  when  he  hark- 
ened  to  the  mystic  murmurings  from  the 
age-stained  manuscripts  in  the  archives  of 
Paris.  Tacitus  knew  it  when  he  traced  in 
vitriol  the  most  savagely  awful  indictment 
of  royal  humanity  ever  penned. 

I  am  pained  that  Voltaire,  the  most 
scintillating  intellect  of  modern  times,  for- 
got it  when  he  was  working  out  his  dull 
biography  of  Charles  XII  of  Sweden,  a 
general  as  able  and  perhaps  as  interesting 
as  Csesar  or  Alexander.  Charles,  alas,  must 
lie  in  a  penumbral  oblivion  for  want  of  a 
Plutarch! 


PROLOGUE  vii 

Max  Nordau,  a  new  philosopher  of  his- 
tory, deserves  a  new  Dante  to  create  for 
him  a  new  limbo  of  utter  dullness.  For 
Nordau  would  reduce  the  human  record  to 
the  record  of  an  impersonal  species  like  the 
ant  or  the  bumble  bee.  He  would  eliminate 
entirely  the  element  of  gossip.  What,  think 
you,  would  history  be  without  the  "Et  tu, 
Brute?'9  of  Caesar,  the  little  vanities  and 
weaknesses  for  femininity  of  the  mighty 
Napoleon,  and  the  homely  yarns  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln?  Would  the  record  that  a 
swarm  of  human  ants  flourished,  built  a 
city  and  died  take  their  place  in  human 
interest? 

So,  therefore,  go  ahead  with  your  gossip- 
ping,  good  friends,  with  a  conscience  as  clear 
as  a  wedding  bell.  And  if,  in  the  midst  of 
your  chattering,  you  can  find  time  for  a 
few  gossiping  words  from  a  good-natured 
stranger,  I  should  appreciate  your  giving 
ear  to  the  ensuing  romance  of  Robert 
Mantell,  and  I  can  assure  you,  on  my 
honor,  that  my  hero,  whom  you  have  seen 
oftenest  on  the  stage  in  stern,  tragic  mood, 
is  as  merry  a  gossip  as  any  of  us. 


Robert  Mantell's  Romance 


CHAPTER  I. 

Introducing  the  Hero  of  these  Memoirs  in  the 
Midst  of  Action,  without  so  much  as 
Hinting  at  the  Time  and  Place  of  his 
Birthy  thereby  Establishing  a  Precedent 
in  Modern  Biography. 

WHEN  the  producer  of  drama  sets 
the  stage  for  a  tragedy,  he  sees 
to    it    that    externals    conform. 
Night  —  moaning  winds  —  light- 
ning flashes  —  the  roar  of  the  hurricane. 

Nature  is  not  so  melodramatic.  If  the 
elements  are  in  a  turmoil  when  the  moment 
comes  for  her  deed  of  destruction,  she  ap- 
propriates the  seething  background.  If  not, 
she  proceeds  calmly,  and  even  with  the 
fastidious  grace  of  the  dilettante. 

No  one  would  have  suspected  her  of 
harboring  ill  to  the  meanest  creature  alive 
on  the  last  night  but  one  of  October,  1878, 
when  the  steamer  Helvetia  glided  through 
the  Irish  Sea  and  into  the  channel  toward 
Queenstown.  It  was  the  middle  of  the  golden 


2        ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

season  the  ancients  called  Halcyon  and 
that  we,  this  side  the  Atlantic,  have  pic- 
turesquely rechristened  Indian  Summer. 
The  full  moon  shone  ghostily  on  an  un- 
ruffled plane  of  water,  bounded  dimly  in 
one  direction  by  a  hazy  line  of  land. 

A  tall  young  man  standing  on  the  forward 
deck  of  the  Helvetia  drew  his  overcoat 
tightly  about  him  as  the  invigorating  sharp- 
ness of  the  October  air  penetrated  to  his 
chest.  He  had  thrust  his  seaman's  cap 
into  his  pocket,  and  his  curly  yellow  hair, 
worn  of  a  length  to  delight  the  soul  of  an 
artist,  fled  back  from  his  forehead  in  the 
wind  created  by  the  motion  of  the  steamer. 
Standing  alone  there  in  the  moonlight,  he 
looked  not  unlike  a  youthful  descendant  of 
the  old  Viking  demigods,  once  lords  of  the 
British  seas. 

He  remained  for  a  long  time  in  deep 
meditation  of  the  glories  of  the  night. 
Then  he  began  pacing  slowly  back  and 
forth,  musing  on  the  future.  He  was  leav- 
ing behind  him  an  old  world  that  had  held 
out  little  promise,  for  a  new  world  of  rose- 
ate dreams.  The  good-bye  kisses  of  a 
mother  were  still  on  his  lips,  and  the  mem- 
ory of  her  tears  brought  a  tear  to  the  brink 
of  his  own  eyes. 

But  the  tear  quickly  sank  back  into  the 
wells  of  his  heart  as  from  somewhere  in 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE         3 

the  bowels  of  the  steamer  came  huskily  the 
strains  of  the  old  song : 

Rocked  in  the  cradle  of  the  deep, 
I  lay  me  down  in  peace  to  sleep. 

It  was  not  the  sentiment  of  the  song  that 
inspired  a  bright  smile,  but  a  mental  vision 
of  the  singer.  A  convivial  companion  had 
boarded  the  Helvetia  at  Liverpool  who  had 
already  on  land  sought  to  drown  the  pangs 
of  parting  with  friends  in  a  genial  glass  or 
two,  and  after  coming  aboard  had  industri- 
ously continued  the  process  of  submursive- 
pang  strangulation.  As  a  result,  it  had  been 
necessary  to  assist  him  to  his  bunk  a  few 
minutes  ago. 

This,  then,  was  the  husky-voiced  singer 
who  was  now  seeking  repose  in  the  cradle  of 
the  deep.  The  young  man  on  deck  listened, 
smiling  more  and  more  broadly,  and  occa- 
sionally chuckling  at  a  strident  note,  until 
the  strains  died  away  prematurely  with 
the  "sparrow's  fall"  as  the  songster  dropped 
off  into  oblivion. 

Then  the  young  man's  face  grew  sober 
as  the  sentiment  of  the  song,  still  running 
through  his  head,  displaced  the  mental 
vision  of  the  singer: 

Rocked  in  the  cradle  of  the  deep, 
I  lay  me  down  in  peace  to  sleep. 
Secure  I  rest  upon  the  wave, 
For  Thou,  O  Lord,  hast  power  to  save. 


4         ROBERT  MANTELL  S  ROMANCE 

As  he  was  humming  to  himself,  there 
grew  out  of  the  mist  in  front  of  him  gradu- 
ally the  lights  and  then  the  phantom  form 
of  a  two-masted  cutter.  She  was  proceed- 
ing as  calmly  through  the  night  as  was  the 
Helvetia.  Her  course  was  at  right  angles  to 
that  of  the  big  steamer. 

The  night  was  deceptive.  Distances  were 
shorter  than  they  seemed  in  the  dreamy 
October  moonlight.  The  smaller  vessel 
glided  in  front  of  the  steamer  in  an  effort 
to  cut  her  course.  There  was  a  crash. 

The  tall  young  man  darted  to  the  rail. 
He  was  already  throwing  a  rope  overboard 
when  the  sailors  of  the  Helvetia  and  the 
passengers  in  their  night-clothing  rushed 
on  deck.  A  veteran  seaman  sprang  to  the 
assistance  of  the  young  man.  They  felt  a 
tug  at  the  rope. 

"Now,  me  'arty,"  said  the  old  sailor, 
"lend  us  a  'eave, "  and  the  two,  hand  over 
hand,  drew  an  exhausted  and  badly  fright- 
ened seaman  aboard. 

"How  many  are  down  there?"  asked  his 
rescuers. 

"About  twen-twen-ty-f-five, "  chattered 
the  half-frozen  sailor. 

All  ropes  available  were  thrown  over- 
board. Boats  were  lowered  and  illuminated 
lifebuoys,  then  a  new  invention,  which 
can  be  seen  a  considerable  distance  by  a 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE         5 

struggling  swimmer,  were  flung  widely  in 
all  directions. 

The  engines  of  the  Helvetia  were  shut  off, 
but  not  reversed,  the  captain  fearing  to 
dash  the  brains  out  of  some  possible  strug- 
gler  in  the  water.  This  little  breach  of  sea 
regulations  afterward  cost  him  his  certifi- 
cate, which  he  had  held  with  honor  for 
thirty-five  years,  and  prevented  a  retire- 
ment with  glory,  that  he  had  planned  after 
this  very  voyage. 

The  little  two-master,  it  was  soon  found, 
had  been  cut  clean  through,  as  by  a  knife, 
amidship,  and  the  halves  were  clinging  to 
the  sides  of  the  Helvetia.  The  men  at  the 
ropes  could  look  right  into  the  bunks  laid 
open  by  the  fearful  force  of  impact.  The 
seamen  in  these  bunks,  thus  exposed,  who 
had  escaped  death  from  shock  were  readily 
rescued.  One,  still  hah*  dazed  with  sleep 
when  taken  aboard,  was  the  source  of  a 
little  amusement  in  the  grim  scene  when  it 
was  found  he  still  harbored  in  his  cheek  an 
enormous  cut  of  tobacco  that  he  had 
stowed  away  comfortably  there  for  the 
night. 

But  while  the  work  of  rescue  was  going 
on,  the  two  fragments  of  the  cutter  let  go 
their  hold  of  the  Helvetia  almost  simul- 
taneously, and  plunged  swiftly  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  channel,  carrying  with  them 


6         ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

nineteen  men  who  had  either  been  killed 
or  stunned  by  the  original  shock  or  had 
been  unable  to  come  within  the  range  of 
the  rescuers.  Only  seven  had  been  saved. 

Such  is  a  record  of  the  destruction  of  the 
revenue  cutter,  Fanny,  by  the  transatlantic 
steamer,  Helvetia,  in  the  early  morning 
hours  of  October  31,  1878,  in  the  channel 
that  divides  the  Irish  Sea  from  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  Nobody  ever  fully  understood  it. 
Was  the  pilot  of  the  Fanny  dozing  at  the 
wheel  when  she  sprang  in  front  of  the 
Helvetia?  Or  was  his  eye  deceived,  like  a 
landsman's,  by  the  spectral  lengthening  of 
distances  in  the  October  moonlight?  The 
only  tongue  that  could  answer  has  long 
since  disappeared  from  a  gray-green  skull 
lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  channel. 

The  tall,  fair-haired  young  man  on  the 
deck  of  the  Helvetia  that  night  was  Robert 
Bruce  Man  tell.  He  was  on  his  way  to 
America  from  England  to  fill  his  first 
theatrical  engagement  in  the  New  World. 
In  his  pocket  was  a  contract  providing  for 
a  tour  of  the  United  States  with  the 
Countess  Bozenta,  whose  name  goes  down 
more  familiarly  in  stage  history  as  Mme. 
Modjeska. 

A  fortnight  after  the  channel  disaster, 
the  youthful  Robert  Mantell  made  his  first 
appearance  on  the  American  stage  at  Al- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE        7 

bany,  New  York,  as  Tybalt  in  "Romeo 
and  Juliet."  The  exact  date,  O,  ye  disciples 
of  Rosa  Dartle,  was  November  18,  1878. 
A  generation  later,  March  21,  1913,  a 
daughter,  Ethel  Mantell,  made  her  pro- 
fessional debut  in  the  same  city  in  a  small 
part  in  "Julius  Caesar." 


CHAPTER  II. 

Interrupting  the  Flow  of  this  Narrative  to 
Explain  why  Chapter  I  was  Written  and 
to  Fulfil  a  Threat. 

WHERE  is  the  sense  of  beginning  a 
biography  with  the  subject  al-* 
ready  a  fully  developed  personage 
of'  twenty -four?  Didn't  anything 
happen  during  that  quarter  of  a  century 
worth  recording?  Is  not  the  usual  attempt 
to  be  made  to  trace  in  the  exploits  of  the 
hero  in  his  early  youth  the  elements  that 
led  to  the  development  of  his  character  in 
later  life? 

Ah,  gentle  reader  (or  savage  reader,  I 
fear  me,  if  by  unfortunate  chance  you  be  a 
critic),  I  perceive  you  have  forgotten  your 
"Tristram  Shandy."  Don't  you  remember 
how  the  wicked  and  witty  old  clergyman 
(heaven  send  us  more  as  wicked  and  witty 
as  he!)  set  out  conscientiously  to  record 
the  adventures  of  Tristram;  but  how  he  got 
himself  into  a  mess  of  trouble  for  his  pains 
in  starting  orthodoxically  with  the  birth  of 
his  hero,  or  rather  a  few  preliminaries  to 
that  important  event?  Page  after  page 
flits  by,  until  they  count  into  the  dozens, 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE         9 

yes,  the  scores,  yea,  the  hundreds,  and 
still  Tristram  is  only  on  the  threshold  of  lif e 
—  Tristram's  father  and  mother  and  Uncle 
Toby  demand  so  much  attention. 

It  was  to  avoid  any  such  accident  as 
this  (scarcely  probable  in  our  day  of  im- 
proved literary  obstetrics  —  but  well  to 
guard  against  just  the  same)  that  I  intro- 
duced to  you  my  hero  as  a  living,  breathing 
personage.  Now,  if  I  should  happen  to 
skip  about  so  long  in  his  ancestral  tree 
that  you  become  anxious  to  know  whether 
he  is  ever  to  be  born,  why,  you  can  turn  back 
to  Chapter  I  and  discover  him  there  as 
large  as  life.  And  if  I  should  linger  too 
fondly,  which  anciently  meant  foolishly, 
over  his  childhood,  and  you  should  grow 
impatient  and  ask,  "Won't  that  kid  ever 
grow  up  and  do  something?"  why,  bless 
your  sweet  temper,  you  can  turn  back  again 
to  Chapter  I  and  see  how  manfully  he 
threw  a  rope  overboard  to  a  helpless  seaman. 

And  now,  by  way  of  the  preface  you 
escaped  in  the  beginning,  here's  what  I 
wanted  to  say  principally.  In  gathering  the 
material  for  the  biography  of  Robert  Man- 
tell,  I  came  into  possession  of  6742  authentic 
facts.  Now,  all  the  biographers  put  to- 
gether of  William  Shakespeare,  with  whom 
Mantell's  name  is  so  strongly  linked  in  this 
generation,  have  not  succeeded  in  establish- 


10      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

ing  more  than  seven  and  one-half  facts,  and 
not  one  of  even  these  so-called  facts  is  so 
well  authenticated  as  my  puny  six-thousand- 
seven-hundred-and-forty-second. 

Now,  it  has  come  to  pass  that,  from  these 
seven-and-one-half  facts,  more  than  one 
biography  of  William  Shakespeare,  in  two 
or  three  huge  volumes,  has  been  written. 
Now,  also,  with  the  aid  of  good  Scotch 
logarithms  (in  honor  of  my  Scotch  hero,  for 
his  nationality  you  are  soon  to  learn)  I  have 
computed  that,  at  that  rate,  with  my 
6742  facts,  I  could  write  a  biography  of 
Robert  Mantell  to  be  comprised  in  9,425,683 
volumes,  neatly  bound  in  leather,  not 
including  the  index. 

But  don't  get  alarmed.  I  was  not  born 
with  the  brutal  instincts  of  a  Sydney  Lee. 
I  am  going  to  submit  my  facts  to  hydraulic 
pressure  that  will  mould  them  into  homeo- 
pathic pellets  for  quick  consumption. 

Another  thing.  I  had  so  much  logic  and 
literary  technique  poured  into  me  in  my 
college  days  that  my  mental  makeup  has 
had  some  such  revulsion  as  the  stomach  of 
childhood  experiences  in  time  against  light- 
brown  sugar  lumps.  Consequently,  this 
biography  will  refuse  absolutely  to  adhere 
to  any  symmetrical  plan.  Any  time  I  feel 
like  interrupting  the  narrative  to  insert 
something  out  of  its  order,  or  even  some- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       11 

tiling  wholly  irrelevant,  I  am  going  to  do 
it.  Or  maybe  I'll  turn  the  thing  topsy- 
turvy before  I'm  through  with  it.  Heaven 
only  knows.  If  it  should  wind  up  in  a 
Dantesque  dissertation  of  some  phase  of 
the  modern  theatrical  inferno,  let  no  one 
lose  equilibrium. 

But,  when  I  have  finished,  I  desire  that 
you  shall  know  Robert  Mantell  somewhat 
as  you  know  David  Copperfield  or  Tom 
Jones  —  not  as  you  know  the  bloodless 
heroes  of  the  "  Dictionary  of  National  Biog- 
raphy." Not,  alas,  that  I  flatter  myself  you 
have  so  able  an  introducer,  but  I  want  you 
to  become  acquainted  with  the  Mantell  of 
flesh  and  blood,  not  the  Mantell  of  news- 
paper clippings.  And,  if  I  do  any  sort  of 
justice  to  the  material  in  hand,  you  will 
read  here  a  tale  of  romantic  adventure,  not 
unworthy,  perhaps,  to  take  a  humble  place 
with  the  narratives  of  the  novelists. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Peeking  about  Discreetly  among  the  Leaves 
of  the  Ancestral  Tree. 

IF  ever  there  was  a  man  supremely  happy 
after  the  old  Hebrew  idea  that  happi- 
ness lies  in  the  fathering  of  a  prog- 
eny   that    shall    be    like    unto    the 
sands  of  the  desert  for  multitude,  that  man 
was   Robert  the  Bruce,   national   hero   of 
Scotland.    For  there  does  not  breathe  a 
loyal  Scot  by  the  name  of  Bruce  who  can- 
not trace  his  ancestry  back  to  the  doughty 
Robert.  There  may  have  been  other  Bruces 
in   Robert's   day,   but   their   descendants, 
alas,  have  vanished  from  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

Robert  Bruce  MantelPs  mother,  whose 
maiden  name  (for  the  information  of  vil- 
lage gossips  who  have  a  mania  for  maiden 
names)  was  Bruce  —  Elizabeth  Bruce  — 
was  no  exception  to  the  general  rule  of  the 
Bruces.  She  firmly  believed  herself  to  be 
of  the  blood  of  Robert,  and,  as  there  were 
no  records  disproving  the  claim,  she  was 
allowed  to  entertain  it  unmolested. 

But,  had  there  been  a  question,  Elizabeth 
Bruce  was  prepared  to  maintain  her  rights 

12 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       13 

of  descent  at  the  point  of  a  pistol.  The 
pistol  I  speak  of  was  a  relic  of  Bannockburn, 
and  had  been  in  the  family,  mouth-to- 
mouth  tradition  said,  from  the  time  even 
of  the  stirring  battle.  Nay,  more,  it  was 
carried  that  day  by  a  Bruce,  and  tradition 
was  not  so  sure  it  wasn't  the  great  Robert 
himself. 

About  this  same  Bannockburn  pistol 
hangs  a  tale  of  Robert  Mantell's  amateur 
days  in  Belfast,  Ireland,  which  I  am  going 
to  tell  here. 

In  Belfast  there  was  a  dramatic  club,  of 
which  young  Bob  Mantell,  semi-clandes- 
tinely,  because  of  parental  objections,  was 
one  of  the  burning  tapers.  In  this  club  was 
also  a  young  man  by  the  name  of  Allen, 
who  believed  himself  the  victim  of  a  plot 
to  hide  his  very  brilliant  light  under  a 
bushel.  Anyhow,  the  directors  of  the  club 
would  never  give  him  important  roles  in 
their  productions.  And  so  Allen,  as  many  a 
worthy  actor  has  done  before  and  since  his 
day,  determined  to  break  loose  and  shine 
for  himself  as  an  independent  star. 

Allen  chose  "The  Lady  of  Lyons"  in 
which  to  make  his  venture,  casting  himself, 
of  course,  as  Claude  Melnotte.  He  engaged 
two  professional  actresses  to  support  him, 
picked  up  some  independent  amateur  talent 
about  town,  and  then  made  a  raid  on  his 


14      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

old  dramatic  club  to  round  out  the  cast. 
Among  the  members  he  chose  was  Bob 
Mantell,  whom  he  offered  ten  shillings  to 
appear  in  a  small  part. 

Bob's  mother,  a  strict  Scotch  Presby- 
terian, didn't  object  too  strenuously  to  his 
engaging  in  amateur  theatricals,  so  long  as 
they  were  kept  strictly  amateur  and  private, 
but  she  had  a  horror  of  the  professional 
stage.  Bob  knew  she  wouldn't  let  him  play 
with  Allen  in  his  money-making  venture,  so, 
in  a  laudable  determination  to  keep  peace 
in  the  family  and  avoid  friction,  he  didn't 
say  anything  to  her  or  any  of  the  others 
about  it. 

It  was  the  first  tune  he  had  been  offered 
money  to  appear  on  the  stage,  and  he  did 
honor  to  the  occasion  by  special  exertions 
to  supply  a  suitable  costume.  He  sewed  up 
with  his  own  hands  an  old  suit  of  yellow 
underwear,  converting  it  into  tights.  An 
ancient  pair  of  Wellington  boots  that  had 
been  worn  by  his  father,  and  a  discarded 
frock  coat  belonging  to  an.  elder  brother 
completed  his  costume.  He  hired  a  wig  and 
bought  a  fierce  black  moustache.  As  a 
finishing  touch  of  villainous  realism  he 
thrust  the  old  Bannockburn  pistol  into  his 
hip  pocket. 

Thus  accoutered  on  the  night  of  the  per- 
formance, Robert  walked  on  to  the  stage 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       15 

confident  nobody  would  recognize  him. 
His  brother  Louis,  however,  sitting  in  the 
very  front  row,  noticed  something  suspicious 
about  the  black-bearded  villain,  and  Bob 
had  said  only  a  few  words  when  Louis,  all 
excited,  drawled  out  in  a  voice  that  could 
be  heard  to  the  back  of  the  hall: 

"  Holy  Moses !    It's  our  Bob ! " 

The  youthful  actor  recovered  the  best 
he  could  from  the  shock,  and  went  nervously 
on  with  his  part.  But  when  he  tried  to 
draw  his  pistol  to  defend  virtue  or  perpe- 
trate vice,  he  never  remembered  which,  it 
stuck  and  wouldn't  come  out.  A  violent 
wrench,  however,  brought  the  Bannockburn 
relic  into  view,  and  Louis,  as  excited  as 
before,  cried  out  still  louder: 

"Holy  Peter!  It's  great-grandfather's 
pistol!" 

That  came  near  breaking  up  the  per- 
formance, and  Allen,  with  all  the  tempera- 
ment, if  none  of  the  genius,  of  a  real  star, 
became  violently  angry.  Mantell,  however, 
displayed  a  first  flash  of  the  bulldog  spirit 
that  long  afterward  was  to  spell  success  for 
him  against  mountainous  odds,  and  pulled 
the  show  together.  The  performance  pro- 
ceeded to  a  finish  without  any  further 
interruptions  from  before  the  footlights. 

Whether  or  not  the  Bannockburn  pistol 
be  accepted  as  proof  conclusive  of  Elizabeth 


16       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Bruce's  ancient  descent,  matters  little. 
What  really  matters  is  that  she  was  of  the 
sturdiest  Scotch  blood,  as  shall  appear  in 
the  course  of  this  narrative,  and  in  Scotland 
a  woman's  a  woman  "for  a'  that,"  as  well 
as  a  man.  She  was  a  farmer's  daughter, 
honest,  healthy,  thrifty  and  canny,  and  her 
children  never  regretted  that  James  Man- 
tell  chose  her  to  be  their  mother. 

James  Mantell  was  an  Englishman  who 
patriotically  hated  the  Scotch  in  general, 
but  who  showed  his  good  taste  by  falling 
in  love  with  one  Scotch  lass  in  particular. 

The  Mantell  family  is  an  old  one.  The 
first  ever-so-great-grandfather  of  which  there 
is  a  trace  came  over  with  William  the 
Conqueror.  This  ancient  warrior's  descend- 
ants are  not  numerous,  and  the  Mantells 
of  England  and  Scotland  are  all  of  fairly 
close  blood  relationship. 

One  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of 
whom  the  family  can  boast  is  Dr.  Gideon 
Algernon  Mantell,  the  geologist  who  im- 
mortalized himself  by  the  discovery  of  the 
Dinosaurian  reptiles.  He  lived  from  1790 
to  1852.  The  greater  part  of  his  splendid 
collection  of  fossils  was  purchased  by  the 
British  Museum,  and  they  form  now  a  very 
important  section  of  the  nation's  geological 
treasures. 

But  a  few  fossils  from  the  Mantell  col- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       17 

lection  are  scattered  through  various  other 
museums  of  England  and  the  United  States, 
and  one  of  these  was  once  the  source  of  an 
uncomfortable  feeling  in  the  breast  of  Dr. 
Mantell's  now  famous  cousin,  Robert,  who 
was  then  a  struggling  young  actor. 

Robert  was  one  day  strolling  about 
Salem,  Massachusetts,  when  his  attention 
was  arrested  by  a  fossil  fish  displayed  in  a 
window  where  scientific  instruments  were 
offered  for  sale.  It  was  labelled  "Mantell." 
Robert  thought  somebody  who  had  seen 
the  show  the  night  before  was  "spoofing" 
him. 

Upon  inquiry,  however,  he  learned  that 
the  fossil  was  not  meant  as  a  symbol  of 
himself  as  an  actor,  but  had  belonged  to 
the  original  collection  of  Dr.  Mantell,  and 
was  highly  prized  by  the  owner.  It  was 
from  the  pretty  young  clerk  in  this  shop 
that  Robert  first  became  definitely  ac- 
quainted with  the  fame  of  the  cousin  of 
whom  he  had  before  only  vaguely  heard. 
The  girl,  an  enthusiast  in  science,  showed 
the  young  actor  "The  Wonders  of  Geology  " 
and  "The  Medals  of  Creation,"  two  of  Dr. 
Mantell's  books  still  highly  prized  by 
geologists. 

Before  Robert  Mantell,  there  is  discover- 
able only  one  showman  in  the  family.  He 
flourished  in  the  days  of  Joseph  Grimaldi, 


18       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

the  most  celebrated  of  all  English  clowns, 
who  scored  so  tremendously  in  "Mother 
Goose"  and  other  pantomimes  at  Covent 
Garden  in  the  latter  days  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Grimaldi's  most  formidable  rival 
in  pantomime  was  a  Mantell,  designated 
in  the  prints  of  the  period  simply  as  "Man- 
tell  the  Clown."  The  details  of  his  history 
are  lost.  Robert  Mantell  saw  a  crude  picture 
of  "Mantell  the  Clown"  in  a  tavern  in 
Drury  Lane  a  few  years  ago.  He  tried  to 
buy  it,  but  the  innkeeper,  who  prided  him- 
self on  his  collection  of  stage  oddities, 
refused  to  part  with  it  for  any  price. 

To  stroll  back  to  the  immediate  parent- 
age. Though  of  ancient  lineage,  the  Man- 
tells  were  not  wealthy,  and  James  Mantell 
had  to  work  for  a  living.  As  a  youth  he 
learned  the  baker's  trade,  and  he  became  so 
proficient  in  the  art  that  his  services  were 
engaged  exclusively  by  Lord  Eglinton, 
whose  castle  in  Ayrshire  is  still  recom- 
mended to  the  attention  of  tourists  by  the 
indefatigable  Baedeker. 

Lord  Eglinton  soon  found  that  his  baker 
could  do  something  more  than  turn  out 
pies  and  puddings.  He  heard  James  Man- 
tell  one  day  singing  at  his  work,  and  dis- 
covered that  he  had  an  excellent  tenor 
voice.  Lord  Eglinton  was  an  extensive 
entertainer.  It  was  in  the  days  before  a 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       19 

country  host  could  take  his  guests  for  an 
auto  spin,  broken  by  a  box  party  at  the 
theatre  of  a  neighboring  city.  Each  mem- 
ber of  a  congenial  company  did  something 
to  entertain  the  rest.  Singing  was  the  most 
popular  exhibition  of  talent.  When  it 
would  come  Lord  Eglinton's  turn,  he  would 
say  with  a  lisp  famous  all  over  Scotland : 

"I  canna'  thing  mythelf,  but  will  have 
one  of  my  houthhold  thing  for  you. " 

James  Mantell  won  so  much  applause 
on  such  occasions  with  old  Scotch  folk- 
songs that  Lord  Eglinton  became  very 
proud  of  him.  Finally,  he  promoted  him 
from  baker  to  private  secretary.  There  is 
extant  an  old  engraving  of  a  famous  race 
at  Epsom  Downs  between  Flying  Dutch- 
man, Lord  Eglinton's  horse,  and  a  French 
contender  Gladiateur,  in  which  James 
Mantell  is  standing  beside  Lord  Eglinton 
in  his  new  capacity  of  secretary. 

Robert  Mantell  inherited  from  his  father 
the  fine  voice  that  brought  the  elder  Man- 
tell  such  good  fortune.  Robert,  however, 
has  chosen  to  build  his  own  fortune  and 
fame  on  the  dramatic  rather  than  the  oper- 
atic qualities  of  his  throat.  Had  he  elected 
otherwise  —  well,  as  his  best  friends  know, 
he  can  sing  an  Irish  song  with  a  tenderness 
that  would  thrill  even  the  worshippers  of 
his  old  comrade,  Chauncey  Olcott. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Hanging  a  Sign  on  the  Wheatsheaf  Inn  for 
the  Future  Guidance  of  Tourists  in  Scot- 
land. 

NEXT  time  you  are  roaming  about 
picturesque  Ayrshire,  the  country 
of  Robert  Burns,  take  a  little  run 
over  to  Irvine,  the  village  of  Robert 
Mantell.    I  wish  I  had  done  so  when  I  was 
there,  for  then  I  could  tell  you  just  where  to 
look  and  what  to  expect.    But,  like  you,  I 
had  not  even  so  much  as  heard  of  the  Wheat- 
sheaf  Inn,  and  so  you  will  have  to  ask 
somebody  in  Irvine  to  point  it  out  to  you. 
If  the  native  should  give  you  a  blank  stare, 
hastily  add  that  it  is  not  now  an  inn,  but  a 
crockery  shop,  and  that  you  want  to  buy  an 
egg  cup  or  an  oatmeal  bowl. 

It  was  in  the  Wheatsheaf  Inn  that  Robert 
Bruce  Mantell,  the  foremost  classic  trage- 
dian of  this  generation,  was  born  on  the 
seventh  day  of  February,  1854. 

When  James  Mantell  fell  in  love  with 
the  Ayrshire  lass  and  decided  to  claim  her 
as  his  bride,  his  office  as  secretary  to  Lord 
Eglinton  began  to  shrink  and  shrivel  in 
his  estimation.  With  the  proud  new  dig- 

20 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       21 

nity  he  was  about  to  assume  he  thought  he 
should  have  some  better  foundation  for  a 
fortune. 

He  talked  it  over  with  Elizabeth  Bruce, 
and  she  thought  so,  too.  Accordingly,  they 
decided  to  lease  the  little  tavern  of  the 
Wheatsheaf  in  the  neighboring  village  of 
Irvine,  and  there  they  began  life  together, 
with  the  blessing  of  Lord  Eglinton. 

James  Mantell  and  his  pretty  bride  be- 
came highly  popular  with  the  little  souls  in 
Maeterlinck's  "Kingdom  of  the  Unborn," 
and  soon  they  had  around  them  a  flourish- 
ing family.  No  satisfactory  explanation 
has  ever  been  offered  of  Elizabeth  Bruce 
Mantell's  long  neglect  of  the  illustrious 
founder  of  her  race,  for  it  was  not  until  the 
third  boy  was  born  that  she  honored  the 
memory  of  the  royal  hero  by  naming  him 
Robert  Bruce.  Was  it  prophetic  foresight? 
Did  the  shade  of  the  old  Scot  himself  per- 
chance inspire  her  at  the  right  moment  to 
designate  with  his  name  the  particular  son 
who  was  to  become  illustrious? 

It  was  in  this  same  Wheatsheaf  Inn 
where  he  was  born  that  Robert  Bruce 
Mantell  was  "discovered,"  in  the  parlance 
of  the  stage.  The  "discovery"  was  made 
by  no  less  a  personage  than  Phineas  Taylor 
Barnum,  who  has  also  to  his  credit  General 
Tom  Thumb  and  the  Wild  Man  of  Borneo. 


22      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Barnum,  once  upon  a  visit  to  Irvine  with 
a  collection  of  his  freaks,  stopped  over 
night  at  the  Wheatsheaf  Inn.  Just  after 
supper,  the  great  showman  saw  a  curly- 
headed  boy  of  three  or  four  standing  in  a 
corner  of  the  dining  room  with  great  round 
eyes  regarding  in  awed  silence  "General" 
Thumb.  The  wonderful  seriousness  of  the 
child  made  Barnum  laugh.  He  walked  over 
to  the  corner  of  the  room,  sat  down  in  a 
huge  chair,  took  Bobbie  Mantell  on  his 
knee,  stroked  his  head,  and  remarked, 
impressively: 

"Some  day,  my  lad,  you  will  be  a  great 
showman,  too." 

The  boy  never  forgot  Barnum's  words. 
Nor  did  he  forget  —  though  he  never 
employed  —  Barnum's  methods,  which  even 
then,  child  though  he  was,  he  dimly  ap- 
preciated. For,  during  that  visit  to  Irvine, 
some  of  Barnum's  disciples  put  into  practice 
the  showman's  theory  of  "a  fool  born  every 
minute."  They  loudly  proclaimed  that 
inside  the  stable  of  the  Wheatsheaf  Inn 
could  be  seen  the  famous  horse  "with  its 
tail  where  its  head  ought  to  be."  After 
collecting  a  modest  entrance  fee,  they  ex- 
hibited an  ordinary  horse  backed  against 
the  manger.  They  also  told  wonders  of  the 
"great  Red  Sea"  picture,  and  the  gaping 
Irvinites  were  shown  a  monstrous  letter 


KAHLY  RECOLLECTIONS 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       23 

C,  done  in  crimson  paint.  Barnum  himself, 
it  seems,  did  not  openly  endorse  these  crude 
fakes  —  he  was  too  much  of  an  artist  in 
fakery  for  that  —  but  his  followers  raked  in 
quite  a  quantity  of  copper  coin  before  the 
indignant  citizens  of  Irvine  drove  them  out 
of  town. 

When  little  Bobbie  was  five  years  old, 
James  and  Elizabeth  Mantell  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  Wheatsheaf  Inn  was  too 
small  for  their  growing  family.  Learning 
that  there  was  a  more  commodious  public 
house  on  the  market  in  Belfast,  Ireland, 
they  decided  to  emigrate.  Accordingly,  they 
disposed  of  their  interests  in  the  Wheat- 
sheaf,  and  journeyed  across  the  Irish  Sea. 

When  they  got  to  Belfast  and  took  pos- 
session of  their  new  hotel,  they  found  that 
its  standing  had  been  misrepresented  to 
them.  It  was  little  more  than  a  resort  for 
disreputable  characters.  But  the  Mantells 
were  not  to  be  discouraged  by  a  bad  bar- 
gain, especially  one  they  couldn't  get  out  of. 
They  adopted  vigorous  measures. 

They  started  by  rechristening  the  hotel 
the  Eglinton-Winton,  in  honor  of  James 
Mantell's  illustrious  patron,  Lord  Eglinton. 
The  Winton  hah*  of  the  name  belonged  to 
the  female  side  of  the  Eglinton  family. 
Then,  when  drunken  revellers  would  come 
to  the  door  in  search  of  lodging,  the  new 


24      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

proprietors  drenched  them  with  water  from 
an  upstairs  window  as  a  gently  persuasive 
hint  that  their  patronage  was  not  wanted. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  Eglinton- 
Winton  began  to  acquire  respectability. 
With  respectability  came  increased  patron- 
age, and  James  Mantell  soon  discovered 
that  his  seven  bedrooms  could  not  begin  to 
take  care  of  his  guests.  Accordingly,  as 
adjoining  houses  became  vacant,  he  leased 
them  and  connected  them  with  his  central 
inn  by  corridors.  Eventually,  he  had  a 
comfortable-sized  hotel  of  forty  rooms. 

The  Eglinton-Winton  became  a  popular 
stopping  place  for  theatrical  people.  From 
these  provincial  actors  and  actresses,  who, 
to  his  imagination,  wore  the  halos  of  gods 
and  goddesses,  Bobbie  Mantell  drew  inspira- 
tion for  rosy  dreams  of  a  future  career  on 
the  stage. 

His  vague  ambitions  were  not  long  in 
taking  tangible  form.  James  Mantell,  al- 
ways solicitous  for  the  comfort  and  enter- 
tainment of  his  guests,  installed  a  billiard 
table,  among  the  first  ever  seen  in  an  Irish 
hotel.  The  billiard  room  was  converted 
into  a  theatre  by  Bob  Mantell  and  his 
brothers  and  sisters,  with  the  table  as  a 
stage. 

The  Eglinton-Winton  was  always  de- 
serted at  Christmas  time,  the  guests  going 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       25 

home  to  enjoy  the  holiday  cheer.  This  fact 
led  the  Mantell  children  to  hit  upon  the 
Christmas  season  for  amateur  theatricals. 
At  first  their  efforts  were  extremely  crude, 
but  the  little  players  rapidly  improved,  and 
before  many  years  the  billiard-table  stage 
became  the  scene  of  quite  respectable  per- 
formances. Friends  were  invited  to  attend, 
and  the  youthful  Thespians  finally  arrived 
at  the  cGgnity  of  a  printed  program,  on 
which  their  names  appeared  opposite  the 
characters  in  various  popular  plays  of  the 
period  —  "Therese,  the  Orphan  of  Geneva," 
"Alonzo  the  Brave,"  and  "The  Fair 
Imogene." 

Elizabeth  Mantell  was  heart  and  soul 
with  her  children  in  these  Christmas  enter- 
tainments, but  afterward  she  was  greatly 
shocked  and  grieved  when  Robert  Mantell 
proposed  seriously  to  adopt  the  stage  as  a 
profession.  Her  strong  Scotch  Presbyteri- 
anism  had  difficulty  in  reconciling  itself  to 
the  professional  theatre. 

The  death  of  James  Mantell  brought  a 
sadness  into  the  little  Belfast  tavern,  and 
the  shadow  it  cast  over  the  billiard-table 
stage  was  never  lifted.  Elizabeth  Mantell 
continued  bravely  to  operate  the  house. 
So  successful  and  thrifty  was  she  that  she 
was  able  to  give  to  each  of  her  four  sons 
and  four  daughters  a  tidy  little  sum  when 


26       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

the  time  came  for  them  to  go  out  into  the 
world.  After  her  death,  Jack  Mantell,  a 
younger  brother  of  Robert,  ran  the  place 
for  a  time,  and  then  the  Eglinton-Winton 
passed  out  of  the  family.  It  still  stands  in 
Belfast. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Being  a  Chapter  on  Education  not  after  the 
Manner  of  Pestalozzi  or  Any  Other  Pest. 

THE  publisher    has  been    asked  to 
perforate  the  pages  of  this  chapter 
close  to  the    inner  edge,  so  they 
can  be  torn  from  the  volume  like 
checks  from  the  check  book  of  the  happy 
mortal  who  either  has  money  in  the  bank 
or  is  not  afraid  to  take  chances  with  the 
law. 

For  there  are  parents  who  object  to  put- 
ting before  the  eyes  of  their  children  any 
account  of  boys  and  girls  who  do  wicked 
things  and  escape  the  devil.  To  such  par- 
ents let  me  say  in  my  most  melancholy 
manner  that  I  regret  deeply  Robert  Mantell 
in  his  school  days  was  not  a  mirror  of  per- 
fection. To  you  other  more  knowing  ones  — 
I  join  heartily  in  your  chorus,  "Thank 
heaven,  he  wasn't!" 

Robert  was  sent  first  to  an  infants' 
emporium  of  learning  in  Belfast,  known  as 
the  Model  School,  and  during  his  brief 
stay  there  a  little  halo  surrounded  his 
sunny  head. 

But  —  alas  for  the  halo!  —  he  was  trans- 

87 


28      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

ferred  shortly  to  Gribben's  Penny  School. 
There  he  became  a  "victim  of  the  sys- 
tem," to  use  the  terrible  words  employed 
by  our  modern  social  uplifters  in  recording 
the  downfall  of  wretched  specimens  of 
humanity. 

This  particular  system  was  the  system  of 
tuition.  A  child  was  charged  a  penny  a 
week  for  instruction.  Bob  Mantell  was 
given  each  week  the  penny  to  carry  to  the 
master  for  his  share  of  the  learning  dis- 
pensed. Between  the  Eglinton-Winton  and 
Gribben's  school  was  a  candy  shop.  One 
morning,  Robert,  penny  in  pocket,  with  his 
shining  morning  face  was  trudging  like 
snail  unwillingly  to  school.  He  passed  the 
candy  store.  A  particularly  tempting 
"sweetie"  was  in  the  window.  He  paused. 
Gribben  had  never  fortified  the  morals  of 
his  pupils  with  stories  of  the  beautiful  boy- 
hood of  George  Washington.  (Pity  the 
Irish  schoolboy  —  he  has  no  George  Wash- 
ington!) Robert  Mantell  was  lost.  Grib- 
ben's school  knew  him  not  that  week. 
Little  Bobbie  spent  seven  days  of  mortal 
terror.  Next  week  the  penny  went  to 
Gribben.  No  questions  were  asked.  The 
sky  didn't  fall.  Bobbie  had  "got  away  with 
it."  Five  more  pennies  at  intervals  went 
into  the  candy  shop  before  he  was  dis- 
covered. Here  we  ring  down  the  curtain  for 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       3d 

a  moment  to  give  Bobbie's  mother  a  chance, 
being  firmly  convinced  from  extensive  read- 
ing of  criminology  that  all  punishment 
should  be  inflicted  in  private. 

Robert  next  was  sent  to  Miss  Smith's 
school  for  boys  and  girls.  Miss  Smith  one 
day  undertook  to  chastise  Robert's  smaller 
brother,  Jack.  The  blood  of  old  Robert 
the  Bruce  stirred  in  the  arteries  of  his 
sturdy  little  namesake.  He  made  a  rush  at 
Miss  Smith  and  seized  hold  of  her  to  drag 
her  away  from  Jack.  In  the  struggle,  he 
tore  her  clothing  and  broke  a  gold  chain 
she  wore  around  her  neck.  But  sex  an- 
tagonism was  aroused  in  the  little  girls  of 
Miss  Smith's  school.  The  tiny  Amazons 
sprang  to  their  heroine's  assistance.  They 
fell  upon  Robert  and  pushed  and  beat  him 
out  of  the  room.  Robert  Bruce  Mantell 
never  in  his  palmiest  days  of  matinee  idol 
was  the  victim  of  such  another  mad  rush  of 
femininity. 

Robert  quite  naturally  did  not  go  back 
to  Miss  Smith's  school,  even  for  his  slate 
and  pencil.  After  a  family  council  of  war 
in  which  brother  Jack  stoutly  upheld  his 
champion,  it  was  decided  to  send  him  to 
Dr.  Rennie's  school  for  boys,  where  the 
discipline  was  reputed  strict. 

For  a  time  he  was  bluffed  by  the  severe 
masters  employed  by  Dr.  Rennie;  and  was 


30      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

making  some  little  progress  in  the  elements 
of  learning,  which  had  been  his  last  con- 
sideration in  school  heretofore,  when  a 
conspiracy  was  hatched.  Robert,  whose 
fame  had  been  established  by  the  episode 
at  Miss  Smith's  school,  was  chosen  ring- 
leader. The  boys  all  agreed  to  get  up  and 
walk  out  when  a  certain  class  was  called. 
Robert,  at  the  appointed  time,  started  for 
the  door,  but  nobody  followed.  The  others, 
apparently,  were  paralyzed  by  a  common 
impulse  or  lack  of  impulse.  Robert  was 
opening  the  door  when  the  headmaster 
seized  him.  The  pedagogue  wasted  no 
words.  Guessing  shrewdly  at  the  truth,  he 
started  to  flog  the  arch  conspirator.  But 
Robert,  savagely  angry  at  both  the  teacher 
and  his  cowardly  associates,  picked  up  a 
heavy  slate,  which  had  no  wooden  frame  as 
slates  have  now-a-days,  and  hit  the  master 
such  a  blow  on  the  knee  that  he  split  the 
flesh  to  the  bone,  cracked  the  kneecap  and 
sent  the  pedagogue  to  the  hospital  for 
repairs. 

Bob  Mantell's  stock  as  battler  in  a  good 
cause  shot  sky  high  with  the  schoolboys 
of  Belfast,  and  he  became  the  idol  of  the 
hour.  It  was  with  difficulty,  however,  that 
his  long-suffering  family  kept  him  out  of 
the  clutches  of  the  law,  and  with  even 
greater  difficulty  that  they  found  a  school- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       31 

master  willing  to  undertake  his  future  edu- 
cation. 

But  queer  old  William  Campbell  decided 
to  take  a  chance.  Campbell  might  have 
stepped  out  of  a  page  of  Dickens,  with  all 
the  embellishments  of  Cruikshank.  He 
was  bald,  with  the  exception  of  a  tuft  of 
hair  above  each  temple.  These  tufts  he 
allowed  to  grow  long,  and  tied  them  to- 
gether across  the  top  of  his  head.  A  thin, 
studious,  dried-up  face,  bordered  by  strag- 
gling sideburns,  completed  the  picture  of 
his  globule  of  intelligence.  He  was  lame, 
and  walked  with  a  crutch  heavily  shod  with 
iron.  An  incomprehensible  vanity  in  a 
creature  so  chastised  by  nature  decreed  an 
immaculate  white  shirt  with  ruffled  front 
and  a  starched  waistcoat  on  all  occasions. 

Master  Campbell  had  a  deplorable  weak- 
ness, of  which  his  boys  often  took  ad- 
vantage. He  was  apt  to  fall  asleep  in  the 
schoolroom  any  moment.  One  day,  when 
he  was  all  oblivious  of  his  surroundings, 
some  of  the  boys  stole  up  to  him,  carefully 
untied  the  tufts  of  hair  and  left  them  lying 
on  top  his  bald  pate.  They  then  stole  as 
quietly  back  to  their  places.  Bob  Mantell 
had  no  hand  in  this  mischief,  not  because  he 
would  have  hesitated  to  help,  but  because 
he  happened  to  be  busy  at  the  time  filling 
desk  inkwells  from  a  big  bottle. 


32       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Campbell  woke  up  with  a  sneeze  that 
brought  the  loosened  tufts  down  his  cheeks. 
He  glared  around.  Bob  Mantell,  the  assail- 
ant of  Miss  Smith  and  of  Rennie's  head- 
master, was  standing  in  front  of  him,  with 
his  back  turned,  filling  an  inkwell.  It  was 
a  case  of  the  dog  and  the  bad  name.  Camp- 
bell picked  up  his  crutch,  took  deliberate 
aim,  and  hit  the  boy  a  sharp  blow  on  the 
ear  with  the  iron  nib.  Bob  whirled  round 
with  a  howl,  dashed  the  ink  from  his  big 
bottle  into  the  face  and  over  the  ruffled 
shirt  and  white  waistcoat  of  the  master,  and 
fled  from  the  room. 

So  ended  his  schooldays  at  Campbell's. 
But  here  he  must  have  learned  something 
by  absorption,  as  he  never  took  the  trouble 
to  study. 

Campbell  thought  well  of  him  as  a 
pupil,  as  was  proven  years  later  when 
Robert  Mantell,  then  famous  as  a  tragedian, 
was  playing  an  engagement  in  Portland, 
Oregon.  There  he  met  a  Dr.  William  Camp- 
bell, who  turned  out  to  be  a  grandson  of  the 
quaint  old  Belfast  schoolmaster.  Dr.  Camp- 
bell showed  Mr.  Mantell  a  letter  written  to 
him  by  his  grandfather,  who  had  Chester- 
field's habit  of  narrating  events  and  con- 
veying moral  reflections  in  epistles.  This 
particular  letter  was  written  some  little 
time  after  the  youthful  Mantell  had  shocked 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       33 

his  relatives  and  friends  by  adopting  the 
stage  as  a  profession. 

"One  of  the  brightest  boys  I  ever  had," 
said  the  schoolmaster,  "was  a  lad  named 
Robert  Mantell.  But,  alas,  he  has  thrown 
his  life  away  by  going  onto  the  stage,  and 
consequently  to  the  devil." 

Mr.  Mantell,  in  the  maturity  of  years,  is 
inclined  to  look  upon  this  observation  as 
on  the  flattering  epitaphs  cut  into  the  white 
marble  of  the  tomb. 

"After  I  went  on  the  stage,"  he  remarked 
to  me,  "I  was  as  good  as  dead  in  poor  old 
Campbell's  opinion,  and  I  am  grateful  to 
him  for  that  epitaph.  It  is  the  only  way  I 
can  account  for  his  remark  about  my 
brightness.  For  I  was  certainly  as  idle  and 
worthless  in  his  school  as  anybody  could 
be.  I  marvel  I  ever  learned  to  read  and 
write." 

But  the  wicked  Mantell  boy  did  learn  to 
read  and  write,  and  it  was  in  McClinton's 
Seminary,  where  he  went  after  Campbell's, 
that  the  youthful  reprobate  began  to  dis- 
appoint those  doleful  well-wishers  who  could 
see  only  the  gallows  stretched  across  the 
path  of  his  future. 

Perhaps  it  was  athletics  that  absorbed 
the  surplus  deviltry  in  his  nature  and  made 
possible  the  gentle  upwelling  of  more  re- 
spectable qualities.  Anyhow,  the  friends  of 


34      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

athletics  are  given  gratis  this  hint  for  a 
text.  If  they  fail  to  preach  a  convincing 
sermon  from  it,  it  is  not  my  fault. 

Bob  Mantell  turned  his  energies  to  strenu- 
ous games,  and  it  wasn't  long  before  he 
began  winning  fame  for  himself  and  for  his 
school  by  his  achievements.  The  climax 
came  when  he  was  presented  with  a  silver 
cup  by  Lord  Waverly  as  the  winner  of  a 
250-yard  race.  As  a  cricketer  he  became 
so  proficient  that  he  was  given  a  place  on  a 
semi-professional  team  that  defended  the 
honor  of  Belfast  against  all  comers. 

A  school  friend  of  those  days  was  the 
athlete  Dunlop,  credited  with  the  invention 
of  the  bicycle  having  wheels  of  equal  size, 
and  certainly  the  inventor  of  the  pneu- 
matic tire  which  bore  his  name.  This  tire 
will,  or  will  not,  be  remembered  by  the 
readers  of  the  nocturnal  adventures  of  the' 
amateur  cracksman,  Raffles,  according  to 
the  retentive  powers  of  their  brain  cells. 
As  for  the  bicycle  wheels  of  equal  size, 
Dunlop  appears  to  be  in  the  predicament 
of  the  Chinese  so  famous  for  being  robbed 
of  their  ancient  inventions  long  afterward. 
The  story  of  Dunlop  and  his  bicycle  is 
too  good  to  be  left  untold,  especially  as 
Mantell  was  an  eye-witness  of  his  sensa- 
tional triumph  in  a  famous  race.  This  race 
was  to  be  held  on  a  turf  track  just  outside 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       35 

Belfast.  There  had  been  a  rain  the  night 
before,  and  the  track  was  softer  even  than 
it  would  have  been  naturally. 

The  racers  appeared  with  their  high 
front  wheels  and  narrow  iron  rims.  Just 
before  they  were  to  start,  out  lumbered 
Dunlop  on  a  crazy  machine  of  his  own 
invention  —  a  bicycle  with  wheels  of  equal 
size  and  monster  rubber  tires  inflated  with 
air.  There  was  a  general  laugh.  The  judges, 
joining  in  the  merriment,  gave  Dunlop  the 
limit  of  the  handicap  on  account  of  the 
crudity  of  his  mount. 

Of  course,  it  happened  as  it  always  does 
in  a  well-regulated  athletic  romance.  The 
hard,  narrow  rims  of  the  other  racers  cut 
into  the  turf,  while  Dunlop's  machine  sped 
lightly  along  to  an  easy  victory. 

Dunlop,  it  seems,  patented  his  bicycle, 
but  there  was  an  irregularity  in  the  patent, 
and  he  never  reaped  from  it  the  fortune  that 
was  his  due. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Reciting  the  Thrilling  Episode  of  Red  Rodger , 
the  Daffy  King  of  the  Fairies. 

LET  me  now  embalm  a  military 
document  whose  hero,  Red  Rodger, 
is  worthy  of  figuring  in  an  ambi- 
tious ballad  of  Erin.  Alas!  I  can 
offer  him  nothing  more  now  than  a  humble 
secondary  place  in  this  biography.  The 
author  of  the  tale  of  Rodger's  exploits  is 
Corporal  Hamilton  H.  Dobbin  of  the  San 
Francisco  police  force,  a  boyhood  friend  of 
Robert  Mantell,  and  a  veteran  of  the  Bel- 
fast wars  you  are  now  to  read  about.  I 
intend  to  make  you  more  particularly  ac- 
quainted with  Corporal  Dobbin,  who  can 
"  spot "  a  pretender  to  Shakespearean  knowl- 
edge as  readily  as  a  pretender  to  civic 
honesty,  after  you  have  read  his  account  of 
this  battle  dreadful.  Here  it  is,  in  his  own 
words,  just  as  he  wrote  it  to  me: 

"In  Belfast  in  the  days  of  our  wild  youth, 
there  were  several  factions  or  gangs  for- 
ever ready  to  engage  in  hostilities  at  the 
drop  of  a  hat.  The  one  to  which  Bob 
Mantell  and  I  belonged,  while  long  on  style, 
finance  and  courage,  was  short  in  numbers. 

36 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       37 

The  gang  to  which  we  were  particularly 
hostile  had  the  numbers  and  plenty  of 
courage  besides. 

"One  day  there  arose  a  dispute  over  some 
matter,  I've  forgotten  what,  perhaps  '  to  'ell 
with  the  Pope  or  King  William'  or  maybe 
both.  It  was  decided  that  it  should  be 
fought  out  on  the  day  following. 

"After  school  hours,  the  leaders  of  the 
two  gangs  got  together  to  arrange  the  rules 
of  the  conflict.  It  was  agreed  that  sticks, 
stones  and  fists  would  be  allowed,  and  that 
only  knives  and  firearms  should  be  barred. 

"Mantell  was  the  leader  of  our  gang,  and 
you  will  see  how  good  a  general  he  proved 
himself  to  be.  Owing  to  our  scarcity  of 
numbers,  the  majority  of  us  felt  that  we 
were  doomed  to  sure  defeat.  But  Bob 
proposed  in  our  secret  council  that  we 
engage  the  services  of  Red  Rodger.  To  this 
we  all  enthusiastically  agreed,  leaving  the 
whole  matter  of  arrangement  to  Bob. 

"Red  Rodger  was  a  town  character.  He 
never  recognized  any  gang.  He  was  looked 
upon  as  being  simple-minded,  but,  in  reality, 
was  more  knave  than  fool.  He  was  a  great 
admirer  of  Bob,  because  the  Mantell  boy 
was  kind  to  him.  When  Rodger  chanced 
to  meet  him,  he  would  salute  by  doffing 
his  ragged  cap  and  giving  his  foretop  of 
very  bright  red  hair  a  jerk  and  exclaiming, 


38       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

'Purty  Montle!  Purty  Montle!'  (his  way  of 
pronouncing  'Mantell').  This  elaborate 
salute  seldom  failed  to  draw  a  copper  or 
two  from  the  pocket  of  Bob.  The  only 
failure  I  remember  was  an  occasion  on 
which  Mantell  was  'broke.'  Then,  instead 
of  a  copper,  Bob  slipped  a  peppermint 
lozenge  into  the  hand  of  Rodger.  Red 
started  his  usual  scrape  and  bow  of  thanks, 
but,  upon  discovering  the  imposition,  went 
off  along  a  tangent  of  as  rich  profanity,  in 
which  'North  of  Ireland'  and  'Orangeman' 
were  mingled,  as  ever  was  heard  in  Belfast. 
Instead  of  'Purty  Montle,'  Bob  was  the 
vilest  rogue  unhung. 

"In  appearance,  Rodger  was  a  sight  to 
behold.  No  stage  Irishman  ever  approached 
him  in  rough  make-up.  His  red  hair  grew 
through  the  top  of  his  cap ;  his  breeches  were 
all  out  at  the  knees  and  frayed  at  the 
bottom,  with  several  patches  of  foreign 
cloth  of  various  patterns  and  designs  about 
the  legs,  and  his  bare  feet  were  knarled  and 
knotty.  When  somebody  would  give  him  a 
pair  of  shoes,  he  seldom  wore  them,  but 
tied  them  together  and  slung  them  over 
his  shoulder.  His  face,  besides  being  dotted 
with  big  freckles,  was  bleached  in  spots. 

"Bob  immediately  got  in  touch  with  this 
sorry  specimen  of  humanity.  He  told  him 
of  the  battle  to  be  fought  next  day,  and 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       39 

came  easily  to  terms  with  him  through  the 
magic  of  a  couple  of  coppers.  He  got  his 
promise  to  be  on  hand  at  the  appointed 
place  with  as  many  boys  as  he  could  collect 
to  follow  him. 

"That  same  evening,  arrangements  were 
completed  for  the  battle.  Stones  were 
gathered  into  little  heaps  along  the  road 
where  they  could  be  got  at  handily,  and 
choice  billets  of  wood  were  hidden  in  out- 
of-the-way,  but  convenient,  places. 

"Next  day  at  the  hour  appointed,  both 
gangs  mobilized  at  a  safe  distance  from 
each  other.  Our  gang  stood  where  we  were, 
killing  time  by  every  device  we  could  con- 
trive, waiting  for  Red  Rodger,  who  was 
late,  but  who,  we  were  confident,  would 
not  fail  us.  The  other  fellows  advanced  up 
the  road  by  short  stages,  until  they  reached 
a  point  about  a  hundred  yards  from  where 
we  were  stationed.  There  they  halted,  fear- 
ing some  trickery  from  our  immobility. 
They  yelled  for  us  to  come  on,  but  we 
didn't  stir. 

"  While  the  puzzled  enemy  was  debating 
a  plan  of  action,  who  should  rush  down  the 
road  at  our  rear  but  our  ally,  Red  Rodger, 
followed  by  a  gang  yelling  like  wild  Indians. 
And  such  a  sight!  I  have  described  Rodger's 
appearance  and  make-up.  Well,  Rodger,  in 
comparison  with  his  followers,  looked  like 


40       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

an  East  Indian  Prince  in  the  full  regalia  of 
his  splendor.  A  rougher,  tougher-looking 
bunch  never  cut  a  throat  nor  scuttled  a 
ship. 

"Rodger  ran  up  to  our  general  with  his 
usual  bow  and  scrape  and  his  salutation  of 
'Purty  Montle.'  Bob  quickly  formed  his 
reinforcements  in  line  of  battle,  and  hur- 
riedly instructed  them  as  to  their  position 
and  duty  in  the  coming  conflict.  Then,  he 
gave  sharp  command  to  all  his  troops  to 
advance. 

"The  enemy  had  been  apparently  stunned 
by  our  accession  of  allies.  When  we  came 
to  within  fifty  yards  of  them,  and  they  got 
a  good  look  at  Rodger  and  his  band,  their 
general  gave  the  word  to  retreat.  As  they 
slowly  backed  away,  we,  in  our  turn,  taunted 
them  to  come  on.  But,  after  a  brief  con- 
sultation among  themselves,  they  threw 
down  their  clubs  and  stones,  and  came 
toward  us  displaying  white  handkerchiefs. 

"We  grounded  arms,  but  did  not  dis- 
card them,  and  waited  for  the  enemy  to 
open  negotiations.  Their  general  declared 
the  fight  off,  and  gave  as  the  reason  that 
they  were  not  going  to  battle  with  elves  and 
fairies.  They  were  perfectly  willing  to  go 
against  'humans,'  but  drew  the  line  at 
demons  led  by  that  daffy  Red  Rodger. 

"As  they  would  not  go  into  action,  we 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       41 

declared  ourselves  victors,  and  admonished 
the  enemy  never  to  trespass  in  our  part  of 
the  town.  After  they  had  solemnly  agreed, 
both  armies  disbanded. 

"On  the  following  day,  Red  Rodger  was 
arrayed  like  the  main  guy  at  a  royal  wed- 
ding. The  clothes  were  the  gift  of  our  gang 
in  celebration  of  our  famous  bloodless 
victory.  Rodger  even  consented  to  wear 
shoes  on  this  occasion. 

"Just  where  or  how  Red  Rodger  re- 
cruited his  gang  of  heathenish  ragamuffins 
was  never  learned.  Some  said  he  picked 
them  up  in  Ballmacarret;  others  thought 
they  came  from  the  Falls  Road.  The  ma- 
jority of  our  opponents  stoutly  maintained, 
and  the  survivors  among  them  doubtless 
will  insist  to  this  day,  that  they  were  real 
fairies,  and  that  Red  Rodger  was  in  league 
with  the  elvish  band."' 

The  fortunes  of  peace  —  perhaps  no  less 
renowned  —  certainly  no  less  intricate  — 
than  the  fortunes  of  war,  separated  Bob 
Mantell  and  Ham  Dobbin  not  long  after 
this  exploit.  Mantell,  AS  will  be  made  mani- 
fest in  these  memoirs,  became  a  famous 
actor.  Dobbin  went  to  sea,  and  for  years 
sailed  "beyond  the  sunset  and  the  path  of 
all  the  western  stars." 

We  find  Dobbin  in  the  spring  of  1878 
going  ashore  in  San  Francisco  to  see  a  per- 


42      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

formance  by  Mme.  Modjeska,  whom  Man- 
tell  was  to  join  the  following  autumn  for 
his  first  tour  of  America.  Dobbin  left  his 
ship  in  the  bay  to  attend  the  theatre  with 
the  captain  and  his  wife,  and  to  row  them 
back  to  the  vessel  after  the  performance. 

Some  years  afterward,  Dobbin  put  into 
the  port  of  San  Francisco  for  good.  There, 
like  many  a  loyal  and  faithful  Irishman  who 
had  gone  before,  he  joined  the  police  force. 

Mantell,  now  famous,  frequently  visited 
the  San  Francisco  theatres.  But  Dobbin, 
while  he  went  to  witness  every  performance 
of  his  former  playmate,  had  not  the  courage 
to  call  upon  him  and  introduce  himself. 
He,  a  lowly  policeman,  was  uncertain  of 
the  reception  that  would  be  accorded  him 
by  the  illustrious  matinee  idol. 

It  was  not  until  the  visit  of  Mantell  to 
San  Francisco  in  1907  that  Dobbin  finally 
screwed  his  courage  to  the  sticking  point. 
Mantell  and  his  wife  had  taken  apartments  for 
the  two  weeks  of  their  stay  in  a  house  in  Ful- 
ton Street,  directly  opposite  Alamo  Square. 

Dobbin  formed  a  plan  of  action.  He 
would  call  on  Mantell.  If  he  found  the 
actor  supercilious  and  snobbish,  like  too 
many  idols  of  the  stage,  he  would  transact 
some  trivial  business  and  leave  without 
disclosing  his  identity.  But  if  — . 

He  reached  the  door  of  the  house  and 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       43 

rang  the  bell  of  the  Mantell  apartment. 
The  door  was  opened  by  Mantell's  little 
Japanese  valet,  Wieda. 

"Does  Mr.  Mantell  live  here?"  asked 
Dobbin. 

Before  Wieda  could  reply,  a  voice  from 
the  top  of  the  stairs  answered  heartily : 

;*You  bet  he  does;  come  right  on  up  - 
I  know  the  dialect!" 

The  cheery  voice  and  outstretched  hand 
convinced  Dobbin.  He  sprang  up  the  stairs 
two  steps  at  a  time. 

"Well!  Well,"  said  the  actor,  grasping 
his  old  friend  by  the  shoulders  at  arm's 
length.  "Come  out  to  St.  Michael's  field, 
and  I'll  gi'  ye  a  Hogan!" 

Dobbin  shrugged  his  shoulders  with  a 
laugh.  He,  too,  remembered  the  drubbing 
Mantell  had  given  him  on  St.  Michael's 
common  just  a  day  or  two  before  their 
parting  in  Belfast.  Tears  in  Dobbin's  eyes 
were  mingled  with  the  laughter.  In  his 
wildest  dreams  he  had  not  pictured  such  a 
greeting  from  his  old  friend  of  thirty  years 
ago.  This  was  the  man  who,  for  a  score  of 
years,  he  had  longed  yet  dreaded  to  meet. 
He  told  Mantell  so. 

"Why,  you  old  stiff,"  cried  the  actor, 
mingling  modern  American  slang  with  an- 
cient Scotch  poetry,  "don't  ye  knaw  a  man's 
a  man  for  a'  that?" 


44      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

That's  the  reason  Robert  Mantell  can 
now  commit  anything  short  of  murder  in 
San  Francisco. 


CHAPTER  VH. 

In  Which  a  Stage  Career  Begins  to  Forecast 
Itself  with  the  Famous  Inevitableness  of  a 
Greek  Tragedy. 

WHEN    knowledge   did   eventually 
begin  to  find  some  sort  of  lodge- 
ment in  Bob  Mantell's  head,  it 
immediately  sought  vent  at  his 
mouth,  and  so  it  was  decided  that  the  boy 
should  become  a  barrister,  the  logical  fate  in 
those  days  of  a  youth  given  to  "spouting." 

Consequently,  he  was  turned  over  to  a 
"grinder"  named  Smiley,  who  was  com- 
missioned to  "grind"  into  his  head  all  of 
the  law  of  the  realm  in  and  out  of  Black- 
stone.  Smiley  was  considered  the  most 
expert  tutor  in  Belfast.  Mr.  Mantell  still 
looks  back  at  him  with  an  awe  forty  years 
have  not  diminished.  Smiley  knew  every- 
thing there  was  to  be  known  about  all 
subjects.  Mathematics,  history,  law,  medi- 
cine, literature  —  nothing  had  escaped  him. 
Smiley  bombarded  Mantell  for  months 
with  the  most  intensive  shrapnel  from  the 
arsenal  of  learning,  and  then  one  day  went 
quietly  to  his  mother  and  told  her  it  was 

45 


46       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

no  use.  Her  son  had  never  been  cut  out  for 
aK.  C. 

The  boy  was  now  fifteen  years  old,  strong, 
robust  and  athletic.  It  was  decided,  after 
Smiley's  report,  to  put  him  to  work.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  was  apprenticed  to  a  whole- 
sale liquor  dealer  named  Neill.  Here  he 
was  employed  for  five  years,  largely  in 
connection  with  the  customs  side  of  the 
business,  and  so  successful  was  he  that, 
in  time,  boy  though  he  was,  he  had  the 
direction  of  sixty  men. 

But,  though  the  work  was  not  hard, 
there  were  disagreeable  features  to  it.  It 
was  badly  paid,  for  one  thing.  Then,  among 
his  sixty  workmen  were  too  many  threats 
of  what  a  young  man  with  a  natural  taste 
for  the  contents  of  the  vats  might  come  to, 
himself,  in  time.  Man  tell  still  has  a  vivid 
remembrance  of  the  more  maudlin  of  these 
wrecks  of  humanity,  who  would  conceal  in 
their  clothing  short  sections  of  slender  gas 
pipe,  through  which  they  would  suck  liquor 
from  the  vats  when  their  youthful  overseer 
turned  his  back  for  a  moment. 

But  it  was  the  comparative  independence 
he  acquired  through  his  apprenticeship  at 
Neill's  —  an  apprenticeship  that  finds  a 
parallel  in  stage  history  in  David  Garrick's 
occupation  as  wine-seller  —  that  paved  the 
way  for  Mantell's  future  as  an  actor.  He 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       47 

had  rid  himself  of  the  disagreeable  thought 
of  a  career  as  a  lawyer.  He  knew  he  could 
make  a  living  at  his  present  trade,  and 
worry  on  the  score  of  mere  subsistence  was 
discarded.  He  had  not  forgotten  Barnum's 
prophecy  of  his  destiny  as  a  showman;  he 
had  not  forgotten  the  halo  that  glowed 
round  the  heads  of  the  touring  actors  and 
actresses  who  visited  the  Eglinton-Winton; 
he  had  not  forgotten  his  pleasure  in  his  own 
performances  on  the  billiard-table  stage 
during  the  Christmas  seasons. 

Now,  while  still  at  Neill's,  he  groped 
about  vaguely  in  search  of  a  threshold  to  a 
stage  career.  The  door  he  entered  was 
Robert  Houston's  elocution  class,  whose 
meetings,  fortunately,  were  at  night. 

Here,  at  last,  Robert  Mantell  made 
progress  in  a  branch  of  learning,  and  made  it 
fast.  Houston,  who  afterwards  won  dis- 
tinction in  New  York  as  a  teacher  of  elocu- 
tion, discovered  unusual  talent  in  the  boy, 
and  developed  it  so  rapidly  that  it  was  not 
long  before  Mantell  became  one  of  his 
assistant  readers  on  tours  of  surrounding 
towns. 

Upon  one  occasion,  Houston,  Mantell 
and  a  singer  by  the  name  of  Pat  Kearns 
went  over  to  the  village  of  Larne  to  give  an 
entertainment.  Houston  had  a  class  at 
Larne,  and  naturally  expected  a  good  crowd. 


48       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

But  it  happened  that  certain  Larnites  were 
giving  an  entertainment  of  their  own  this 
very  night,  and  everybody  in  the  village 
went  to  that,  except  two  elderly  women  and 
a  small  boy,  who  evidently  preferred  big 
city  talent. 

Houston  was  not  to  be  discouraged  by 
such  a  little  accident  as  an  empty  house, 
and  started  the  entertainment.  The  two 
elderly  ladies  and  the  small  boy  appeared 
mightily  pleased.  Rarely  in  the  world's 
history  has  there  been  so  unanimously 
sympathetic  an  audience.  Houston  and 
Mantell  were  amused.  Kearns  was  dis- 
gusted. He  took  Mantell  aside. 

"Bob,"  he  whispered,  "we  must  get  rid 
of  that  *  crowd*  some  way  —  they'll  sit 
through  the  whole  bloomin'  program,  if 
we  don't  do  something.  Houston'll  go 
right  on  through  with  it.  It's  up  to  you  or 
me."  Then,  after  a  moment's  pause:  "I 
have  it  —  when  it  comes  your  turn  again, 
don't  recite,  but  sing  something." 

Mantell  agreed,  and,  sure  enough,  as  he 
was  finishing  his  song  the  old  ladies  and 
the  little  boy  quietly  stole  away. 

Another  time,  Mantell  and  Billy  Laird, 
both  of  whom  had  won  gold  medals  at 
Houston's  school,  were  engaged,  for  two 
pounds,  to  give  an  entertainment  in  a 
neighboring  town.  Much  was  expected  of 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       40 

them,  as  Belfast  "gold  medallists"  were 
highly  regarded. 

When  they  got  to  the  town,  the  two 
young  men  found  they  were  to  give  their 
entertainment  in  a  church,  and,  to  make 
matters  worse,  not  from  a  platform,  but 
from  the  pulpit.  They  were  taken  aback, 
as  their  repertoire  wasn't  exactly  of  the 
Sunday  school  variety. 

But  they  decided  to  risk  it.  Laird  made 
the  first  venture  with  "Toby  Tosspot,"  a 
humorous  poem  of  the  bibulous  variety, 
highly  popular  in  that  day.  As  Laird  got 
deeper  and  deeper  into  a  really  excellent 
drunken  impersonation,  Mantell  noticed 
the  brows  of  the  minister  contracting  into  a 
darker  and  darker  frown. 

When  the  poem  was  finished,  the  rever- 
end gentleman,  with  aggressive  dignity,  got 
up  and  announced  quietly  that  Mr.  Laird 
would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  the 
entertainment,  but  that  Mr.  Mantell  would 
give  the  entire  program.  Mantell  racked 
his  brains  for  churchly  numbers,  and,  by 
dint  of  judicious  selection  and  impromptu 
expurgation,  saved  the  day.  He  got  his 
sovereign,  but  Laird  got  nothing  but  an  icy 
shoulder  from  the  entire  congregation. 

Mantell's  success  as  a  public  entertainer 
added  fuel  to  the  flame  of  his  desire  to  go 
on  the  stage.  He  was  one  of  the  moving 


50      EGBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

spirits  in  the  organization  of  an  amateur 
dramatic  club  that  began  eventually  to 
give  performances  of  a  highly  meritorious 
character.  They  rented  scenery  and  cos- 
tumes from  the  regular  theatres  and  staged 
their  productions  ambitiously.  The  ex- 
penses were  defrayed  by  contributions  from 
the  members,  and  afterwards  by  a  shilling 
admission  fee  to  the  performances. 

A  disturbing  element  of  the  club  was 
Dick  Davis,  a  royal  good  fellow  at  heart, 
but  gifted  by  nature  with  a  disposition  that 
could  never  lie  parallel  with  any  other 
disposition.  This  budding  young  Roscius 
finally  became  so  troublesome,  that,  by 
unanimous  vote,  he  was  expelled. 

Davis  resolved  on  an  exquisite  revenge. 
His  opportunity  came  at  the  next  public 
performance  of  the  club.  The  gallant  young 
Thespians  of  Belfast  had  made  it  a  rule 
that  ladies,  accompanied  by  male  escort, 
should  be  admitted  free  to  their  entertain- 
ments. Davis  sized  up  the  capacity  of  the 
hall  where  the  performance  was  to  be  given, 
and  then  went  around  to  all  the  young 
women  of  his  acquaintance  and  invited 
them  to  accompany  him  to  the  show. 

His  unexampled  popularity  with  the 
sweeter  sex  is  attested  by  the  fact  that,  on 
the  night  of  the  performance,  fully  fifty 
girls  were  on  the  steps  bright  and  early  at 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       51 

the  invitation  of  Davis.  When  the  door 
opened,  Davis  bought  a  ticket,  and  took 
in  on  it  all  his  female  friends,  giggling  at 
the  joke.  They  filled  every  seat  in  the  little 
hall.  When  the  curtain  went  up,  Davis, 
sitting  in  the  front  row  with  a  grin  all  over 
his  face,  beamed  brightly  at  his  former 
fellow  players. 

It  was  in  this  club,  with  as  merry  a  crowd 
as  ever  lived,  that  Robert  Mantell  gained 
his  first  real  experience  as  an  actor.  His 
lessons  in  elocution  at  Houston's,  combined 
with  a  naturally  good  voice  and  a  handsome 
face  and  figure,  made  him  a  leading  spirit  of 
the  club. 

When,  finally,  in  the  last  year  of  his 
apprenticeship  at  Neill's,  "Richelieu"  was 
staged  by  the  club  at  the  Theatre  Royal  in 
Belfast  for  a  church  benefit,  Robert  Mantell 
was  cast  for  the  role  of  De  Mauprat.  It 
was  his  first  appearance  in  a  real  theatre. 
Heretofore,  he  had  played  only  in  halls. 
The  year  was  1873.  Mantell  was  nineteen. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Pausing  on  the  Brink  of  the  Horrible  Realm 
of  Vagabondage  before  Taking  the  Final 
Fatal  Plunge. 

WHEN  he  left  the  wholesale  liquor 
house,  Robert  Mantell's  mind 
was  made  up.  He  would  be  an 
actor.  His  mother  was  heart- 
broken. His  old  nurse,  when  she  heard  his 
resolution,  cried,  "O,  Bobbie,  Bobbie  boy!" 
and  went  weeping  to  her  own  little  room. 
A  funeral  in  the  house  could  not  have  been 
more  depressing.  Almost  as  well  be  dead 
as  fall  into  eternal  disgrace. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  force  of  these 
lamentations,  it  is  necessary,  and  not  un- 
interesting, to  glance  at  the  social  status 
of  the  actor  in  England  and  the  English 
dependencies  in  1873.  For  the  Scotch 
Presbyterianism  of  Elizabeth  Bruce  Man- 
tell,  strict  as  it  was,  will  not  account  fully 
for  the  effect  produced  by  the  resolution  of 
her  son. 

In  those  days,  the  actor  was  looked  upon 
as  little  better  than  the  vagabond  the  law 
of  the  realm  classed  him.  No  respectable 
person  liked  to  be  caught  on  the  street  with 

5t 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       53 

one  of  these  picturesque  strollers.  It  was 
all  right  to  ask  him  to  take  a  drink  with 
you  at  the  bar  of  a  public  house.  Even, 
under  certain  circumstances,  you  could 
invite  him  into  your  home  for  a  few  hours, 
but  distinctly  as  a  social  inferior.  Mantell's 
own  brothers,  once  when  he  returned  home 
for  a  visit  after  a  season  on  the  stage,  were 
squeamish  about  walking  down  the  street 
with  him,  although  they  treated  him  de- 
cently enough  at  home.  Mantell  had  many 
of  these  "left-handed  friends"  in  Rochdale, 
where  he  first  played. 

In  those  days,  too,  it  was  hard  to  find  in 
the  rural  districts  a  public  house  that  would 
keep  an  actor  over  night.  Many  and  many 
a  time  Mantell  had  the  door  of  an  inn 
slammed  in  his  face  when  he  revealed  his 
profession. 

On  one  occasion,  after  he  had  been  sleep- 
ing in  haystacks  for  several  nights,  he 
applied  at  a  neat-looking  rooming  house 
for  lodging.  He  was  asKed  his  business. 
He  said  he  was  traveling  for  a  London  firm, 
which  was  the  truth,  so  far  as  it  went.  He 
was  given  a  soft,  clean  bed,  and  soon  forgot 
his  troubles.  When  he  awoke  in  the  morn- 
ing, however,  he  found  his  portmanteau 
neatly  packed  and  sitting  on  the  doorstep 
outside.  Upon  inquiring  the  reason,  the 
proprietor  of  the  inn  told  him  kindly  enough 


54       ROBERT   MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

that,  during  the  night,  he  had  learned  he 
was  an  actor,  and  he  couldn't  keep  him 
any  longer.  He  had  let  him  have  his  sleep 
out  and  wouldn't  accept  any  money  for 
his  night's  lodging,  doubly  proving  his 
humanity.  But  prejudice  was  prejudice, 
and  actors  couldn't  stay  and  disgrace  his 
house. 

In  spite  of  the  rapid  strides  toward  re- 
spectability stage  people  have  made  in 
forty  years,  some  such  prejudice  as  this  is 
still  traceable  in  rural  England  and  America. 
I  have  found  relics  of  it  in  small  towns  in 
the  South,  where  hotel  proprietors  would  a 
little  rather  that  the  stage  folk  would  stop 
at  a  rival  hotel,  and  leave  their  commercial 
custom  unmolested. 

Prejudice  dies  hard  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
breast  —  perhaps,  also,  in  the  Hottentot 
and  the  Malay  —  and  I  am  tempted  to 
trace  here  this  most  interesting  one  through 
history. 

The  Regulations  of  the  "Ancient  Cus- 
tomary of  Brittany,"  of  venerable  but 
uncertain  date,  contain  this  article: 

"Among  those  who  are  regarded  as  in- 
famous in  the  eye  of  the  law,  and  incapable 
of  acting  as  witnesses,  are  lewd  women, 
hangmen  of  thieves,  horse-knackers,  hawk- 
ers of  pastry,  and,  among  others,  *  retailers 
of  wind,'  that  is  to  say  any  performers  on 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       55 

the  violin  and  bagpipe,  mountebanks  and 
players,  who  lead  a  Hfe  full  of  infamy  and 
scandal.  Because,  in  point  of  fact,  there  is 
no  profession  more  infamous  and  more 
remote  from  the  natural  duty  of  all  men 
than  that  of  devoting  one's  life  to  the 
amusement  of  others." 

This  severe  indictment,  the  teeming  root 
of  trouble  to  English-speaking  players 
throughout  dozens  of  generations,  has  not 
been  lived  down  completely  to  this  day. 
The  opinion  was  reflected  in  a  law  of  1572, 
which  sought  to  suppress  all  acting  except 
that  under  the  patronage  of  great  person- 
ages, by  pronouncing  unattached  players 
"rogues,  vagabonds  and  sturdy  beggars," 
and  threatening  any  one  who  should  Harbor 
them  with  the  punishment  of  being  "grevi- 
ously  whipped  and  burnt  through  the 
gristle  of  the  right  ear  with  a  hot  iron  of 
the  compass  of  an  inch  about." 

(If  the  innkeeper  who  set  Mantell's 
portmanteau  outside  had  even  the  vaguest 
of  atavistic  sensibility  in  his  makeup,  can 
you  wonder  at  his  action?) 

It  was  in  the  cheerful  times  of  the  law  of 
1572  that  the  star  of  Shakespeare  arose. 
Richard  III,  whom  Shakespeare  has  grate- 
fully held  up  to  the  detestation  of  all  future 
generations,  was  the  first  powerful  English 
friend  of  the  players,  and  it  was  through 


56       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

his  example,  in  attaching  actors  to  his  house- 
hold, that  the  modifying  clause  exempting 
from  punishment  those  under  the  patronage 
of  great  personages  was  made  possible. 

Elizabeth,  who  now  sat  on  the  throne, 
and  her  successor,  James,  were  of  as  broad 
mind  as  Richard  had  been  with  regard  to 
the  stage,  and  they  were  lax  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  more  severe  clauses  of  the  laws 
against  the  players. 

But  the  Reformation  gave  birth  to  still 
more  drastic  legislation,  and  these  laws, 
religiously  enforced,  all  but  wiped  the  stage 
out  of  existence. 

The  Restoration  brought  the  actor  back, 
and  with  him  an  institution  new  to  the 
English  theatre,  the  actress.  But  licentious- 
ness, general  in  this  period  of  reaction 
against  Puritanism,  reached  its  climax  on 
the  stage,  and  while  the  players  found 
themselves  no  longer  subject  to  persecu- 
tion, they  were  in  profound  moral  disrepute. 

From  the  period  of  Charles  II  to  the 
present  day,  the  English-speaking  actor 
has  been  climbing  slowly  and  painfully  to 
his  present  position  of  decent  citizenship. 
As  late  as  1875,  when  players  were  invited 
to  great  functions  in  England  to  use  their 
talents  in  the  general  merry-making,  a 
silken  cord  was  stretched  across  the  draw- 
ing-room to  separate  the  stage  people  from 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       57 

the  rest  of  the  guests.  But  the  cord  was 
abolished  in  time,  and  the  actors  began  to 
mingle  with  the  men  of  letters,  the  states- 
men and  the  lords  and  ladies  of  the  realm. 

Then,  in  1895,  Queen  Victoria,  the  most 
liberal-minded  woman  who  ever  sat  on  a 
throne,  raised  an  actor,  Henry  Irving,  to 
the  peerage.  The  fight  for  respectability 
was  won. 

It  was  in  1873  and  in  the  very  teeth  of 
the  "Ancient  Customary  of  Brittany"  that 
Robert  Mantell  resolved  to  go  on  the 
stage.  He  made  one  concession  to  his 
mother.  He  would  not  disgrace  the  family 
name  by  dragging  it  into  the  mire  of  vaga- 
bondage behind  the  footlights.  He  would 
call  himself  Robert  Hudson. 

More  than  that  —  he  would  go  to  Amer- 
ica, and  nobody  need  ever  know  of  his 
disgrace.  His  brother  James  was  purser 
on  the  steamer  Samaria,  plying  between 
Liverpool  and  Boston.  He  would  work  his 
way  across  the  Atlantic. 

Elizabeth  Mantell  gave  in.  She  presented 
Robert  with  the  same  little  sum  of  money 
she  had  given  his  older  brothers  when  they 
started  out  into  the  world,  and  with  it  her 
blessing. 

The  voyage  to  Boston  was  uneventful. 
Robert  landed  on  American  soil,  and  walked 
whistling  up  the  street  in  search  of  a  suit- 


58       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

able  theatre  in  which  to  make  his  debut. 
The  name  of  the  street,  he  doesn't  know. 
Nobody,  except  a  sleep-walker,  ever  suc- 
ceeded in  retracing  his  first  steps  in  Boston. 

It  was  in  May,  1874,  that  Robert  Mantell 
began  calling  on  the  Boston  theatrical 
magnates.  Much  to  his  astonishment,  none 
of  them  appeared  effusive  over  the  yellow- 
haired  Scotch  elocutionist  with  the  Irish 
brogue.  The  tenth  day  he  counted  his 
money.  There  was  just  enough  left  to  buy 
a  return  ticket  to  Queenstown,  and  a  few 
shillings  over. 

Mantell  became  panic-stricken.  He 
rushed  to  the  steamship  office.  Yes,  the 
Hecla  was  leaving  that  very  day.  He 
bought  a  ticket.  Then  he  ran  back  to  his 
little  hotel,  packed  his  belongings,  paid  his 
bill,  and  a  few  hours  later  was  steaming 
away  from  America. 

The  land  of  promise  had  repulsed  him 
coldly.  He  had  found  out  all  about  America 
in  ten  days. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

On  the  Professional  Stage   at  Last,  Happy 
but  Penniless. 

IT    wasn't    exactly    as    the    conquering 
hero  he  had  pictured  to  himself  that 
Robert  Mantell  returned  to  Belfast. 
But  one  person  was  secretly  glad  of  it, 
and  that  was  Elizabeth  Mantell.  She  hoped 
the  little  adventure  had  cured  her  boy,  and 
that  now  he  would  settle  down  to  the  life 
of  a  respectable  tradesman. 

Robert,  indeed,  made  some  such  resolu- 
tion, for  he  wasn't  particularly  proud  of 
his  exploit.  But  the  old  fever  was  too  strong, 
and  he  began  looking  about  for  a  theatrical 
engagement.  He  didn't  want  to  go  on  the 
stage  in  Belfast,  because  of  his  mother's 
objections  to  a  stage  career,  and  because, 
also,  of  a  secret  uneasiness  concerning  his 
talents.  He  did  not  relish  registering  any 
brilliant  failure  at  home. 

He  learned  from  a  friend,  Frank  Clements, 
of  a  small  opening  in  a  stock  company  at 
the  Theatre  Royal,  Rochdale,  Lancashire, 
England.  He  applied  for  it  and  got  it. 
There,  on  the  night  of  October  21,  1876, 
without  flourish  of  trumpet  or  clash  of 

59 


60       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

cymbals,  Robert  Bruce  Mantell  made  his 
professional  stage  debut.  But  he  was  regis- 
tered as  Robert  Hudson,  and  his  name 
appeared  opposite  the  Sergeant  in  Dion 
Boucicault's  "Arrah-na-Pogue." 

Some  idea  of  Mantell 's  ability  as  an  actor 
at  the  outset  of  his  career  can  be  gathered 
from  a  story  he  is  fond  of  telling. 

Years  afterward  when  he  had  won  his 
spurs  in  "Fedora,"  Mantell  and  a  number 
of  brother  actors  were  sitting  one  night 
around  a  table  in  the  old  Morton  House, 
New  York.  In  the  circle  was  the  veteran 
George  Clarke,  a  leading  member  of 
Augustin  Daly's  company.  The  conversa- 
tion turned  on  the  ludicrous  in  acting. 

"George,"  somebody  asked  Clarke,  "who 
was  the  worst  actor  you  ever  saw?" 

The  veteran  pondered.  "I've  seen  so 
many  bad  ones,"  he  said,  "that  I  really 
can't  answer  off-hand.  Oh,  yes,"  suddenly 
brightening,  "I  know  now.  I  was  playing 
once  in  a  little  town  in  England,  Rochdale, 
I  think.  I  was  visiting  star  in  'The  Shaugh- 
raun.'  There  was  a  callow  young  galoot,  a 
member  of  the  local  stock  company,  who 
was  cast  as  Father  Doolan.  That  young 
man  was  the  very  worst  actor  I  ever  saw!" 

"The  drink's  on  me,  Mr.  Clarke,"  spoke 
up  Mantell.  "I  was  that  Father  Doolan." 

The  night  of  the  first  presentation  of 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE      61 

"The  Merchant  of  Venice"  by  the  stock 
company  in  Rochdale  came  near  proving 
the  Waterloo  of  the  "callow  galoot."  A 
few  kind  words  from  the  stage  manager, 
Richard  Edgar,  saved  a  career. 

Mantell  was  cast  for  Salarino.  When  he 
walked  on,  in  the  first  act,  and  opened  his 
lips  to  speak,  he  noticed  some  people  in 
the  audience  holding  the  book  on  him.  It 
was  his  first  experience  of  the  kind,  and  a 
sudden  fear  that  he  would  make  a  mistake 
in  his  lines  rendered  him  speechless.  The 
others  on  the  stage,  experienced  stock 
actors,  sized  up  the  situation,  and  quickly 
"faked"  across  his  lines. 

Mantell  walked  off  the  stage  cast  down 
to  the  lowest  depths.  He  was  a  failure. 
His  career  was  ended.  With  his  head  bowed 
in  the  misery  of  defeat,  and  looking  neither 
to  the  right  nor  the  left,  he  made  slowly  for 
the  stage  door,  opened  it,  and  started  out. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  asked  Edgar, 
who  was  decked  in  the  gaudy  parapher- 
nalia of  Launcelot  Gobbo. 

"Home,"  answered  Mantell,  drearily. 

"Hadn't  you  better  leave  those  clothes, 
then?"  said  Edgar,  but  with  a  kindly 
humor  in  his  voice. 

"Pardon  me,"  replied  Mantell,  hastily. 
"I  forgot.  I  was  so  worried  I  didn't  know 
what  I  was  doing." 


62      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"What  are  you  worried  about?"  asked 
Edgar,  who  already  knew. 

*  My  career's  all  over,"  answered  Mantell, 
tragically.  :'You  saw  how  I  spoiled  the 
performance.  I'm  not  fit  for  the  stage." 

"Oh,  come,"  cried  Edgar,  slapping  him 
heartily  on  the  back.  ;<That  was  nothing. 
Cheer  up,  my  boy.  We  all  go  through  things 
like  that.  The  best  of  us  are  liable  to  go 
up  in  our  lines  at  any  moment." 

The  youth,  with  grateful  tears  in  his 
eyes,  grasped  the  hand  of  the  stage  man- 
ager. He  never  forgot  that  little  experience, 
and  many  a  raw  beginner  in  his  own  com- 
pany has  blessed,  without  knowing  it,  the 
kindly  spirit  of  Edgar. 

And  so  Robert  Mantell  was  a  full-fledged 
actor,  though  truly,  as  Shakespeare  would 
say,  only  a  fledgling  still.  He  was  given 
small  rdles  in  all  the  productions,  and  when 
the  Christmas  season  came  round,  he  cele- 
brated the  anniversary  of  his  billiard- 
table  performances  by  taking  part  in 
the  Rochdale  pantomime.  Complimentary 
words  from  his  fellow  players,  and  occa- 
sionally from  the  great  Edgar  himself, 
caused  him  to  feel  that  he  had  made  no 
mistake  in  the  choice  of  a  profession.  He 
was  happy  in  the  feeling.  He  was  blissfully 
ignorant  of  George  Clarke's  opinion  of  his 
Father  Doolan. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       63 

But  his  happiness  was  not  of  the  tainted 
variety  that  comes,  according  to  the  ortho- 
dox moralists,  with  great  riches.  His  con- 
tribution to  the  gayety  of  Rochdale  was 
rewarded  with  less  than  four  American 
dollars  a  week. 

How  did  he  manage  to  live  on  that? 
Easily  enough,  with  dreams  of  a  rosy  future 
as  an  aid  to  subsistence.  He  and  three 
other  young  men  drawing  the  same  salary 
took  a  couple  of  rooms  in  a  cheap  lodging 
house  that  wasn't  above  giving  shelter  to 
actors.  They  bought  their  own  provisions, 
and  the  lady  of  the  house  cooked  them. 
Meat  was  a  luxury.  They  would  buy  it 
in  chunks  and  cut  it  into  slices  thin  as 
paper  for  frying.  They  learned  to  play  a 
joke  on  their  stomachs.  They  would  put  a 
small  bit  of  the  bacon  in  their  mouths. 
Then,  while  eating  several  slices  of  bread, 
they  would  roll  the  bacon  about  with  their 
tongues,  occasionally  even  biting  it  be- 
tween their  teeth.  After  appeasing  their 
hunger  with  the  bread,  they  would  swallow 
the  oacon. 

The  season  at  Rochdale  wasn't  over- 
whelmingly successful  to  the  impresario  of 
the  stock  company,  in  spite  of  his  diminutive 
salary  list,  and  early  in  the  spring  Mantell's 
first  engagement  ended  with  the  disbanding 
of  the  players. 


64      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

But  he  wasn't  long  without  work.  There 
was  an  open-air  celebration  —  a  sort  of 
fair  —  in  honor  of  Eastertide  at  Bolton,  a 
distance  of  only  ten  or  fifteen  miles.  Thither 
trudged  the  young  actor  with  confidence 
born  of  a  season  of  experience. 

The  tragedian,  Heffernan,  was  holding 
forth  in  a  tent  at  the  fair.  To  him  Mantell 
applied  for  a  job.  Heffernan's  company  was 
short,  and  when  he  found  he  could  get  the 
handsome  young  applicant  for  mere  living 
expenses,  he  engaged  him. 

Heffernan  was  a  character.  He  was  an 
actor  of  high  talent  and  infinite  resources, 
lacking  nothing  but  the  final  touch  that 
spells  success.  He  was  popular  throughout 
provincial  England,  but  could  never  succeed 
in  London. 

Heffernan's  exhibitions  at  the  fair  were  a 
sample  of  his  resourcefulness.  He  had  made 
versions  of  "Macbeth,"  "Othello,"  "Rich- 
ard III,"  "Hamlet"  and  the  rest,  so  hy- 
draulically  condensed  that  he  could  give 
ten  or  a  dozen  performances  a  day.  He  did 
his  work  so  well  that  his  audiences  usually 
went  out  with  the  impression  that  they  had 
seen  Shakespeare. 

Before  the  start  of  one  of  these  tabloid 
performances,  Harlequin,  Pantaloon,  Colum- 
bine and  the  rest  would  come  out  in  front 
of  the  tent  and  give  a  characteristic  exhi- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       65 

bition  of  foolery  and  sentiment  that  would 
cause  a  gaping  crowd  to  assemble.  The 
Columbine  Mr.  Mantell  remembers  par- 
ticularly as  a  deliciously  exquisite  creature 
who  seemed  the  very  fairy  she  impersonated. 
When  the  little  open-air  performance  was 
over,  the  Clown  would  announce: 

"Now,  good  people,  step  inside  and  see 
the  famous  drama  of  Master  William 
Shakespeare,  called  *  Macbeth.'  The  best 
seats  are  only  tuppence,  and  a  single  penny 
will  admit  you  to  witness  the  marvelous 
blood-curdling  tragedy ! " 

Usually  the  crowds  would  flock  into  the 
tent  on  the  trail  of  Columbine.  Inside  were 
rough  wooden  benches.  The  penny  seats 
were  separated  from  the  twopence  by  a 
row  of  spikes  turned  toward  the  rear. 
Presently  the  curtain  would  go  up,  and 
Heffernan,  assisted  principally  by  mem- 
bers of  his  own  family,  would  wade  in 
blood  to  his  eyes  through  the  most  harrow- 
ing of  Shakespeare's  scenes.  His  acting 
was  intensely  vivid,  if  not  artistically 
finished. 

One  day,  Heffernan  was  raving  through 
"Macbeth."  He  was  in  the  midst  of  the 
scene  following  the  murder  of  Duncan. 

"Is  this  a  dagger  which  I  see  before  me?" 
he  shrieked  in  frenzy. 

"Naw,"  drawled  a  raw-boned  Scot,  seated 


66       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

in  the  front  row.  "It's  the  skin  o'  a  finnan 
haddie!" 

"I'll  finnan  haddie  ye!"  yelled  the 
tragedian,  and,  leaping  across  the  foot- 
lights, he  sprang  upon  the  Scotchman,  gave 
him  a  sound  drubbing,  and  then  kicked  him 
up  the  aisle  and  out  of  the  tent. 

Heffernan  then  went  back  to  the  stage, 
plunged  once  more  into  the  role  of  Macbeth, 
and  finished  the  performance  as  if  nothing 
out  of  the  ordinary  had  happened.  Of  such 
stuff  were  made  the  tragedians  in  the  school 
of  hard  knocks  where  Robert  Mantell 
learned  his  art.  Is  it  any  wonder  then, 
that,  at  the  turning  point  of  his  career, 
Mantell  more  than  duplicated  the  exploit 
of  Heffernan  against  a  gang  of  ruffians  who 
sought  to  nullify  his'  acting  —  as  shall  be 
told  in  its  proper  place? 

The  engagement  with  Heffernan  lasted 
only  during  the  two  weeks  of  the  Easter 
fair,  and  then  Mantell  joined  Charles 
Mathews  for  small  parts  in  "My  Awful 
Dad"  and  "The  Clock-Maker's  Hat."  This 
engagement,  too,  was  brief,  and  the  early 
part  of  April  found  the  adventurous  young 
actor  in  the  company  of  Alice  Marriott. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Episode  of  the  Four  Young  Noblemen  at 
Fifteen  Shillings  a  Week,  with  Other 
Matters  Pertinent  to  this  Biography. 

IT  was  a  merry  gang  of  happy-go-lucky 
vagabonds  that  constituted  Alice  Mar- 
riott's company.  The  repertoire  of  this 
really    accomplished   tragedienne   was 
extensive,  but  the  mainstay  was  "Queen 
Elizabeth." 

Mantell  had  the  r61e  of  Lord  Howard  of 
Effingham.  He  quickly  struck  up  an  inti- 
mate friendship  with  Sir  Francis  Drake,  the 
Earl  of  Essex  and  Francis  Lord  Bacon. 
The  four  noblemen  became  as  inseparable 
as  D'Artagnan  and  his  three  comrades, 
Athos,  Porthos  and  Aramis.  Lord  Bacon 
was  our  old  friend  Richard  Edgar,  stage 
manager  at  Rochdale  —  no  longer  "the 
great  Edgar,"  but  now  just  an  associate 
actor  of  normal  proportions.  The  Earl  of 
Essex  was,  in  private  life,  MantelTs  par- 
ticular chum  ("and  I  loved  him  like  a 
brother,"  Mantell  told  me),  Frank  Clem- 
ents, who  afterwards  won  distinction  on  the 
stage  in  America.  Sir  Francis  Drake  be- 
er 


68       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

came,  in  the  wings,  plain  Gerald  Eyre,  if 
so  romantic  a  real  name  can  be  called  plain. 

These  noblemen  had  fallen  on  evil  days 
since  the  intriguing  times  of  good  Queen 
Bess,  when  they  held  all  England  in  the 
hollow  of  their  hands.  Their  average  earn- 
ings now  were  only  fifteen  shillings  a  week. 
But  no  one,  seeing  them  in  then*  gorgeous 
stage  attire,  would  have  guessed  it.  They 
were  even  more  suave  and  polite  and  pros- 
perous looking  than  in  the  days  of  the 
Spanish  Armada. 

Outside  the  theatre,  the  difference  was 
apparent.  It  was  no  uncommon  sight  to 
behold  the  four  friends  trudging  along  the 
street  to  their  lodgings,  Lord  Howard  with 
a  loaf  of  bread  under  his  arm,  Sir  Francis 
Drake  with  a  joint  of  meat,  Lord  Bacon  with 
a  string  of  sausages,  and  the  Earl  of  Essex 
with  a  bunch  of  onions.  They  themselves 
realized  how  far  they  had  fallen  in  the  social 
scale  when  even  the  majority  of  cheap  inns 
closed  their  doors  to  peers  of  the  realm,  and 
often  forced  them  to  hunt  for  hours  when 
they  struck  a  new  town  for  a  place  to  put 
up  for  the  night. 

One  day  the  four  noblemen,  then  playing 
in  Hull,  decided  to  improve  their  fortunes. 
Sir  Francis  Drake,  whose  "head  for  figures" 
had  caused  him  to  be  appointed  treasurer 
of  the  quartet,  lashed  his  brain  into  a 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       69 

financial  delirium,  during  the  course  of 
which  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
had  discovered  a  way  to  "beat  the  races." 
He  announced  to  his  associates  so  confi- 
dently that  he  knew  "all  about  the  horses" 
that  he  convinced  them.  They,  accordingly, 
scraped  all  their  savings  together,  and  took 
a  trap  to  the  race  track  eight  miles  away. 

When  they  got  there,  they  all  turned  over 
their  money  to  Sir  Francis.  He,  with  a 
smile  of  superior  and  supreme  confidence, 
bided  his  time,  and  then  laid  every  penny 
on  a  "dead  sure  thing."  The  horse  non- 
chalantly strolled  under  the  wire  fifth  or 
sixth. 

The  smile  on  Sir  Francis'  face  vanished 
as  quickly  as  if  Queen  Elizabeth  had 
suddenly  turned  off  the  electric  current  of 
her  favors.  Clouds  gathered  on  the  brows 
of  the  other  three  noblemen,  but  scarcely  a 
mutter  of  thunder  was  heard. 

They  were  eight  miles  from  Hull,  and  the 
evening  performance  was  less  than  four 
hours  off.  There  was  no  money  in  pocket 
to  pay  for  a  trap  in  advance,  and  none  at 
home  to  pay  the  driver  on  arrival.  The 
four  noblemen  did  the  only  thing  left  — 
they  girded  up  their  loins  and  started  for 
Hull  after  the  manner  of  pilgrims  of  eld. 

Away  they  trudged  across  ditches  and 
through  ploughed  fields,  taking  advantage  of 


70      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

every  short  cut  they  could  discover.  Never 
in  the  days  when  intrigue  ran  the  highest 
was  Sir  Francis  Drake  so  unpopular  as  on 
that  dusty  afternoon  of  early  summer. 

They  reached  the  theatre  only  a  few 
minutes  before  time  for  the  curtain,  and 
quickly  exchanged  their  travel-stained  gar- 
ments for  the  regal  attire  of  the  Court  of 
Elizabeth.  Nobody  in  the  audience  that 
night  suspected  how  hungry  and  footsore 
were  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham,  Sir  Fran- 
cis Drake,  Francis  Lord  Bacon  and  the  Earl 
of  Essex. 

On  the  night  of  his  debut  with  Miss 
Marriott,  Robert  Mantell  —  or  Robert 
Hudson,  as  he  was  still  calling  himself  — 
had  the  second  and  last  real  stage  fright  of 
his  life.  The  first,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  on  the  night  of  the  premiere  of  "The 
Merchant  of  Venice"  at  Rochdale. 

Shakespeare  again  was  responsible.  The 
play  was  "Hamlet."  Mantell  was  cast  for 
Francisco.  To  him  and  Bernardo  fell  the 
duty  of  breaking  the  ice.  Mantell  remem- 
bered his  Rochdale  experience,  and  felt 
nervous.  Just  before  time  for  the  curtain 
to  go  up,  he  sought  out  the  property  man. 
He  slipped  a  shilling  into  a  hand  that,  from 
long  experience,  closed  automatically  over 
the  coin,  and  whispered : 

"Turn  the  gas  as  low  as  you  can." 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE      71 

The  property  man,  without  a  why  or 
wherefore,  did  as  he  was  told.  But  he 
turned  the  flame  too  low,  and  the  swish  of 
the  curtains  in  parting  blew  it  out.  Ham- 
let's father's  ghost  was  forced  to  come  un- 
timely from  his  dread  abode  and  relight  it. 

The  humor  of  the  situation  touched 
Mantell  on  his  ever-present  funny  spot 
and  he  forgot  his  fears.  From  that 
moment  to  this,  he  has  been  a  good  "first 
nighter."  Many  a  time  he  has  been  vio- 
lently nervous,  but  the  nervousness  has 
always  put  fire  into  his  veins.  When  much 
has  depended  on  a  new  venture,  he  has  been 
so  excited  he  could  not  eat,  but  hunger  has 
had  on  him  the  savage  effect  it  exerts  on 
the  tiger. 

Mantell  rose  rapidly  in  the  good  graces 
of  Miss  Marriott.  From  Francisco,  with 
whom  he  doubled  Guildenstern,  the  second 
actor  and  the  priest,  she  promoted  him  to 
the  ghost,  and  when  she  staged  "  Macbeth  " 
she  assigned  to  him  the  parts  of  Ross  and 
Malcolm. 

But  the  ch'max  of  her  favors  came  a  few 
months  later,  after  he  had  finished  his  first 
tour  with  her,  when  she  re-engaged  him 
especially  for  the  r61e  of  Richard  the  Lion- 
Hearted  in  a  new  production  of  "Ivan- 
hoe." 

The  first  performance  was  in  Liverpool. 


72      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Mantell  was  in  his  glory.  He  strutted  on  to 
the  stage  and  spoke  his  lines  with  all  the 
unction  of  his  best  days  in  Robert  Houston's 
elocution  school  in  Belfast. 

When  he  walked  off  to  the  delightful 
music  of  the  first  vigorous  round  of  ap- 
plause he  had  ever  earned,  he  was  met  in 
the  wings  by  Miss  Marriott  in  the  garb  of 
Rebecca. 

"You're  doing  fine,  Bobbie,"  she  whis- 
pered proudly,  "but,"  she  added  delicately, 
"remember,  lad,  Richard  was  an  English 
king,  not  an  Irish  schoolmaster." 

During  the  Christmas  season  of  1877, 
just  previous  to  this  second  engagement  with 
Miss  Marriott,  Mantell  played  in  panto- 
mime at  Newcastle-on-Tyne.  Here  occurred 
the  first  of  a  series  of  love  adventures  that 
have  made  MantelPs  stage  career  so  pictur- 
esque in  the  eyes  of  the  feminine  half  of 
humanity. 

He  fell  desperately  in  love  with  a  young 
girl  of  wealthy  family,  and  she  returned 
his  affection  just  as  desperately.  But  papa 
was  more  desperate  still.  He  had  no  more 
use  for  stage  vagabonds  than  the  majority 
of  fond  fathers  in  rural  Britain  in  that  day. 
Mantell,  though  of  Scotch  blood,  had  all 
the  romance  of  Italy  in  his  veins.  Not 
content  with  meeting  his  lady  love  dis- 
creetly, he  conceived  the  brilliant  idea  of 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       73 

serenading  her  at  her  home,  and  one  night 
put  the  idea  into  effect. 
,  Father-in-law-not-to-be  had  ideas  of  his 
own  about  the  romantic  customs  of  Italy. 
He  threatened  to  shoot  the  impassioned 
young  serenader  if  he  didn't  cease  his 
"screeching"  and  "caterwauling,"  as  he 
was  unsympathetic  enough  to  term  the 
exquisite  tenor  vocalizations,  and  all  but 
carried  out  the  threat. 

Mantell  left  Newcastle-on-Tyne  with  a 
broken  heart.  But  it  was  not  primarily  to 
bind  together  the  shattered  fragments  that 
he  went  to  Glasgow.  He  had  been  engaged 
by  Miss  Ellen  Wallis,  a  capable  actress- 
manager,  for  "responsible  business,"  and  it 
was  to  fill  this  engagement  that  he  returned 
to  his  native  Scotland.  He  was  not  long 
with  Miss  Wallis,  however,  before  his 
former  manager,  Miss  Marriott,  drafted 
him  for  her  production  of  "Ivanhoe," 
launched  in  Liverpool,  as  has  already  been 
related. 

MantelTs  engagement  in  Liverpool 
marked  a  turning  point  in  his  career.  For 
it  was  in  this  metropolis  of  Western  Eng- 
land that  H.  J.  Sargent,  then  abroad  look- 
ing for  talent  to  support  Mme.  Modjeska 
on  an  ambitious  American  tour,  saw  the 
handsome  young  Scotchman.  Sargent  was 
not  long  in  placing  him  under  contract  at 


74       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  which  looked 
like  a  huge  sum  alongside  the  four  dollars 
he  had  been  receiving,  and  the  eight  or  ten 
dollars  he  was  getting  now. 

Upon  concluding  his  Liverpool  engage- 
ment with  Miss  Marriott,  Mantell  went  to 
his  old  home  in  Belfast  to  spend  the  sum- 
mer before  starting  for  the  New  World, 
again  to  seek  his  fortune,  but  this  time  with 
better  prospects  of  success.  He  had  gained 
now  a  foothold  on  the  stage,  though,  as 
yet,  the  future  looked  none  too  bright  to 
a  Scotch  instinct  of  thriftiness.  England 
held  promise  only  of  slow  advancement. 
America,  in  spite  of  the  Boston  disaster, 
was  a  land  of  golden  dreams. 

And  so  it  came  about  that  on  October  30, 
1878,  Robert  Mantell  again  set  sail  across 
the  Atlantic,  on  the  steamer  Helvetia. 
And  this  brings  us  up  to  Chapter  I  of  this 
authentic  biography,  in  which  is  recorded 
the  disaster  of  the  revenue  cutter  Fanny. 

Robert  MantelPs  adventures  from  now 
on  belong  chiefly  to  America.  We  shall 
accompany  him  back  to  the  Old  World  for 
an  exciting  or  an  amusing  experience  or 
two,  but  for  the  most  part  we  must  zigzag 
with  him  across  this  continent. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

First  Impressions  of  America  by  the  Blonde 
Tybalt. 

ON    the   very  opening    night  of   his 
engagement  in  America  at  the  old 
Leyland  Opera  House  in   Albany 
Robert   Mantell    excited    the  ad- 
miration of  the  one  person  whose  opinion 
counted  with  him  just  then  more  than  that 
of  anybody  else  —  Mme.  Modjeska  herself. 
The  play  was  "Romeo  and  Juliet."   Man- 
tell  was  the  Tybalt.   Instead  of  making  up 
with   the   traditional   black   wig,   Mantell 
presented  Tybalt  in  his  own  natural  blonde 
curly  hair. 

"You  are  charming,"  said  Modjeska, 
with  her  little  sprightly  jerk.  "  You  are  a 
stunner,  and  should  not  be  killed." 

Long  years  afterward  the  mature  Mantell 
returned  the  compliment  in  these  words: 

"Mme.  Modjeska  was  the  loveliest  star 
I  ever  supported.  She  was  a  sweet,  good 
woman,  and  an  artist  to  her  finger  tips." 

On  this  opening  night  in  Albany,  Mantell 
played  for  the  first  time  under  his  own 
name.  Heretofore  he  had  always  appeared 
as  Robert  Hudson.  Sargent  was  responsible 
for  the  change. 

75 


76       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"What  shall  we  call  you  on  the  pro- 
gram?" he  asked  Mantell. 

"Robert  Hudson,  I  suppose,"  was  the 
reply;  "that's  what  I  have  been  calling 
myself  all  along." 

"But  your  own  name  is  more  distinctive," 
said  Sargent;  "there  are  hundreds  of 
Hudsons  in  America." 

"All  right,"  returned  the  actor,  "put  it 
Mantell.  We  are  a  long  way  from  Belfast." 

And  Mantell  it  has  been  ever  since. 
And  it  wasn't  many  years  before  his  bril- 
liant success  caused  his  family  to  forgive 
the  "disgrace"  into  which  he  had  plunged 
the  name. 

Apropos  of  Modjeska  and  "Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  Mr.  Mantell  was  an  eye  witness  of 
an  amusing  incident  in  London  a  few  years 
later,  when  Shakespeare's  Italian  romance 
was  being  played  with  Modjeska  as  Juliet 
and  Forbes-Robertson  as  Romeo. 

It  was  the  scene  in  which  Romeo  and 
Count  Paris,  played  on  this  occasion  by 
Herbert  Standing,  fight  the  duel  at  the 
tomb  of  Juliet.  Romeo  had  just  slain  the 
unfortunate  young  nobleman  and  had  placed 
him,  in  accordance  with  his  dying  request, 
by  the  side  of  the  rigid  Juliet,  when  the 
dim  lamp  over  the  scene  flickered  up  and  set 
fire  to  some  drapery. 

Romeo   tried,   with  as  little  departure 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       77 

from  the  poetry  of  the  situation  as  possible, 
to  put  out  the  fire.  Juliet,  with  iron  nerve, 
retained  her  pose  of  death,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  drapery  was  burning  directly 
above  her  and  a  detached  bit  of  the  flaming 
cloth  might  drop  on  her  at  any  moment. 
Count  Paris,  however,  was  seized  with 
nervous  qualms.  He  picked  himself  up  and 
quietly  stole  away.  Then,  a  stage  hand 
with  a  long  hook  gathered  in  the  burning 
drapery  and  easily  extinguished  the  fire. 
Thereupon,  Count  Paris,  amid  the  titters 
of  the  audience,  quietly  glided  back,  lay 
down  and  died  a  second  time,  and  the 
pathetic  scene  went  on. 

Robert  Mantell  kept  a  diary  of  his  first 
tour  of  America.  It  was  the  first  and  only 
diary  he  ever  kept  in  his  life.  As  a  veracious 
biographer,  I  am  compelled  to  state  that  it 
resembles  more  the  diary  of  Samuel  Clemens 
than  that  of  Samuel  Pepys. 

You  remember  the  extract  Mark  Twain 
published  from  the  diary  he  started  in  his 
boyhood  days,  at  the  instigation  of  a  pious 
aunt  or  some  other  relative,  who  thought 
it  would  be  the  making  of  him,  if  he  could 
turn  his  hare  brain  to  serious  introspection, 
and  record  his  daily  deeds  and  thoughts. 
The  result  ran  like  this : 

Monday  —  Got  up,  washed,  went  to  bed. 

Tuesday  —  Got  up,  washed,  went  to  bed. 


78       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Wednesday  —  Got  up,  washed,  went  to 
bed. 

Thursday  —  Got  up,  washed,  went  to 
bed. 

Friday  —  Got  up,  washed,  went  to  bed. 

Next  Friday  —  Got  up,  washed,  went  to 
bed. 

Friday  fortnight  —  Got  up,  washed,  went 
to  bed. 

Following  month  —  Got  up,  washed,  went 
to  bed. 

Now,  compare  this  extract  from  Robert 
Mantell's  diary  of  his  voyage  to  America: 

Nov.  1  —  Fine  weather. 

Nov.  2  —  Fine  weather. 

Nov.  3  —  Fine  weather.  Passed  sailing 
ship. 

Nov.  4  —  Blowing  pretty  hard. 

Nov.  5  —  The  sea  going  down.  Rolling 
yet.  Fog  whistle. 

Nov.  6  —  Nearly  calm. 

Nov.  7  —  Cold  and  cloudy. 

Nov.  8  —  A  little  stormy.  Passed  two 
steamers.  Very  stormy  at  night. 

Nov.  9  —  Awful  stormy. 

Nov.  10  —  The  sea  has  gone  down,  and 
our  bark  goes  well. 

Or,  better  still,  take  this  extract: 

Mar.  3  —  Terre  Haute,  Indiana  —  Small 
place. 

Mar.  4 — Lafayette,  Indiana — Small  place. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       79 

Mar.  5  —  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana  —  Small 
place. 

Mar.  6  —  Springfield,  Ohio  —  Small  place. 

But  this  waste  of  inanities,  which  is  a 
sample  of  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred 
diaries  kept  by  ambitious  youth  wishing  to 
curry  favor  in  the  eyes  of  their  elders,  is 
relieved  here  and  there  by  an  interesting 
observation  or  adventure. 

On  January  6,  the  young  Scotchman 
found  Baltimore  a  "great  place  for  oysters." 
The  next  week  he  visited  our  beloved 
Washington  City,  whose  White  House  and 
Capitol  and  Monument  inspire  such  surg- 
ings  of  patriotism  in  the  breasts  of  the 
youth  of  America.  He  found  it  a  "great 
place  for  oysters  and  ten  pins."  That  is  his 
entire  impression,  as  recorded  in  his  diary. 

He  was  "greatly  disappointed"  in  New 
Orleans  and  "wouldn't  live  in  it  for  any- 
thing," and  Pittsburg  (which  then  had  not 
arrived  at  the  dignity  of  the  final  "h") 
was,  as  he  expressed  it,  a  "dirty  hole." 
The  mature  Mantell  has  changed  his  opinion 
of  both  these  cities. 

He  was  favorably  impressed  with  Indian- 
apolis, which  appeared  "something  like 
Belfast,"  and  Louisville  he  found  "a  very 
nice  city."  Cincinnati  was  "one  of  the 
most  ungodly  places  he  was  ever  in." 

In  Kalamazoo  he  ate  frogs  for  the  first 


80      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

time  and  found  them  "splendid."  In  De- 
troit he  got  his  first  taste  of  real  Ameri- 
can winter.  In  Grand  Rapids  he  enjoyed 
his  first  sleigh  ride  —  "great  value!"  he 
exclaims. 

At  Norfolk,  Mme.  Modjeska  invited  him 
to  go  aboard  the  American  flagship,  Pow- 
hatan,  with  her,  and  he  found  the  trip  very 
interesting.  At  Savannah,  he  and  a  number 
of  other  members  of  the  company  went 
horseback  riding.  Atlanta  he  describes  as 
"a  busy  place." 

Near  Montgomery,  Alabama,  he  experi- 
enced his  first  railroad  wreck,  and  the  only 
one  to  date  in  his  entire  career.  The  private 
car  in  which  Modjeska  and  her  company 
traveled  ran  off  the  track  and  came  near 
plunging  down  an  embankment.  Count 
Bozenta,  husband  of  the  star,  an  important 
little  man,  ran  about  highly  excited  when 
the  danger  was  all  over,  much  to  the 
aggravation  of  Modjeska  and  the  amuse- 
ment of  everybody  else. 

In  Memphis,  Mantell  experienced  his 
first  hotel  fire.  "Don't  like  this  town  at 
all,"  is  the  entry  in  the  diary.  "  Will  be  glad 
to  leave  it.  Fire  in  the  hotel.  Devil  of  a 
fright.  I  shall  never  forget  this  place  as 
long  as  I  live.  One  cannot  imagine  what  a 
fright  one  gets  when  the  hotel  is  on  fire. 
I  don't  wish  it  to  occur  again."  For  the 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       81 

benefit  of  the  superstitious,  it  might  be 
added  that  it  was  the  thirteenth  of  a  month 
—  February,  1879. 

St.  Louis  impressed  the  youthful  visitor 
as  a  "  very  important  city."  "  Some  say,"  he 
adds,  "that  the  population  is  larger  than 
Chicago." 

Chicago  is  given  more  space  in  the  diary 
than  any  other  city.  The  company  re- 
mained here  two  weeks.  "We  are  doing 
splendid  business,"  says  our  chronicler. 
"Indeed,  we  do  good  business  everywhere. 
As  for  the  city,  it's  one  of  the  finest,  in  my 
humble  opinion,  I  have  seen.  The  hotels 
are  the  finest  I  ever  saw.  I  went  to  church 
on  Sunday.  It  was  the  finest  Presbyterian 
church  I  ever  saw.  There  were  fifty  in  the 
choir.  The  preaching  was  good  and  the 
singing  elegant.  Our  time  was  very  pleas- 
antly spent  one  way  or  another  in  Chicago." 

It  is  recorded  that  "nothing  wonderful 
happened  "  in  Rochester.  There  was  "plenty 
of  rain"  in  Syracuse.  "One  of  the  finest 
hotels  in  America"  was  visited  in  Utica. 
"One  of  the  worst  hotels  anywhere"  was 
encountered  next  day  in  Troy. 

Boston  had  "greatly  improved"  since 
his  visit  there  five  years  before,  when,  for 
ten  days,  he  had  trudged  the  streets  in 
search  of  work.  Rosy  spectacles,  doubt- 
less. But  the  thing  that  impressed  the 


82       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

diarist  most  was  the  fact  that  there  were 
38,000  more  women  than  men  in  the  New 
England  metropolis. 

From  Boston,  Modjeska  jumped  to  New 
York.  "Fine  city,  I  am  delighted  with  it," 
says  the  diary.  At  the  Grand  Opera  House 
on  the  night  of  April  28,  1879,  Robert  Man- 
tell  made  his  first  appearance  in  the  capital 
of  New  World  theatredom.  His  first  part 
in  New  York  was  Old  Dill  in  "East  Lynn." 
Mme.  Modjeska  hated  this  play  to  the 
bottom  of  her  artistic  soul,  but  it  was  a 
money-maker,  and  she  chose  it  for  her 
opening  bill  in  New  York.  Mantell  was 
greeted  here  by  a  number  of  his  old  friends 
from  Belfast  who  had  emigrated  to  America, 
and  they  showed  him  a  royal  good  time. 

A  brief  trip  through  New  England  — 
Providence,  Springfield,  Hartford  and  New 
Haven  —  ended  the  tour.  "The  scenery 
about  these  places,"  says  the  diary,  "is 
more  like  England's  than  any  in  America." 

Here  is  the  summing  up  of  this  first  sea- 
son in  America  by  the  young  Scotch  actor, 
who  was  destined,  long  after,  to  take  his 
place  as  the  foremost  classic  tragedian  on 
the  stage  of  the  New  World.  It  is  dated  at 
Springfield,  May  14: 

"As  our  tour  ends,  all  our  company  feel 
sorry,  for  it  has  been  most  enjoyable. 
Every  comfort  one  can  wish  for  we  have 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       83 

had.  We  did  all  our  tour  in  a  very  hand- 
some palace  car.  The  gentlemen  of  the 
company  were  all  splendid  fellows.  Can't 
say  much  about  the  ladies.  Modjeska 
(Countess  Bozenta),  our  star,  was  all  one 
could  ask  for  in  goodness,  etc.  As  for  H.  J. 
Sargent,  our  manager,  I  never  knew  a 
finer  fellow." 

On  May  17,  Mantell  sailed  for  home  on 
the  Helvetia,  the  same  steamer  that  had 
rammed  the  Fanny  coming  out.  Mantell 
seems  to  have  been  her  "hoodoo."  There 
was  a  fog.  "  We  got  stuck  on  Sandy  Hook," 
says  the  diary. 

"Yes,  and  to  pick  a  pocket,"  remarked 
to  me  the  tragedian,  thirty -five  years  later, 
sitting  on  the  cool  porch  of  his  summer 
home  at  Atlantic  Highlands  and  gazing  out 
toward  the  sickle  of  land  across  which 
swept  the  Atlantic  breezes  that  were  so 
refreshing  to  us,  while  New  York,  twenty 
miles  away,  sweltered  in  the  August  sun, 
"I  have  been  stuck  on  Sandy  Hook  ever 
since." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Last  Days  in  the  Old  World,  Terminating 
with  the  Episode  of  the  Beautiful  Gypsy 
Stage  Queen. 

IN   spite   of   the   favorable   impression 
America  had  made  upon  him,  in  spite 
of  the  opportunities  opened  up  in  this 
country  after  his  successful  tour  with 
Modjeska,  Robert  Mantell  found  it  no  easy 
matter    to    tear    himself    away    from    the 
motherland.    His  months  of  absence  had 
made   him   homesick.     He   hoped   against 
conviction  that  fortune  would  smile  brightly 
upon  him  in  his  own  hemisphere. 

Accordingly,  less  than  two  months  after 
landing  in  England,  he  joined  the  company 
of  the  distinguished  actor-manager,  George 
S.  Knight.  With  Knight  he  toured  for 
more  than  a  year,  playing  fairly  good  parts, 
but  drawing  a  meagre  salary.  When  Knight 
appeared  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Belfast,  he 
complimented  the  young  actor  by  assign- 
ing to  him  in  his  home  city  the  r61e  of  lago 
to  Frank  Clement's  Othello.  This  was 
Mantell's  first  appearance  as  lago,  a  r61e  in 
which  he  afterwards,  as  a  star,  won  ex- 
traordinary distinction  in  America,  alter- 
nating it  with  the  Moor. 

84 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       85 

It  was  with  Knight  that  Mantell  made  his 
first  appearance  in  London  in  July,  1880, 
playing  at  the  famous  Sadler's  Wells,  where, 
from  1844  to  1862,  Samuel  Phelps  had  made 
the  brilliantly  successful  experiment  of 
producing  all  of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare, 
except  "Henry  VI,"  "Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida,"  "Titus  Andronicus"  and  "Richard 
II."  (Incidentally,  it  may  be  remarked,  Mr. 
Mantell  considers  Samuel  Phelps  the  most 
magnificent  Cardinal  Richelieu  he  ever  saw.) 

With  Knight,  Mantell  not  only  acted, 
but  also  assisted  in  the  management  of  the 
stage,  and  there  laid  the  groundwork  for 
the  extraordinary  technical  knowledge  with 
which  he  has  since,  on  many  occasions, 
astounded  experienced  carpenters  and  elec- 
tricians in  his  employ.  They  have  some- 
times declared  certain  effects  sought  by  the 
star  to  be  impossible.  Mantell  has,  on  such 
occasions,  taken  into  his  own  hands  the 
saw  or  hatchet  or  rope  or  electric  lamp  and 
shown  how  easily  the  effect  can  be  produced. 

To  this  side  of  Mantell's  experience  with 
Knight  belongs  a  good  story  illustrating  the 
sanguinity  of  youth. 

It  was  just  before  the  Christmas  season 
at  Stockton-on-Tees.  As  in  America  at  the 
present  time,  the  few  days  before  Christmas 
are  wretchedly  bad  in  the  theatre,  every- 
body spending  their  money  for  gifts.  Knight 


86       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

disbanded  his  company  for  the  dull  period. 
The  players  scattered  in  all  directions, 
leaving  Mantell  and  Archie  Lindsay,  a 
fellow  actor  and  mechanician,  to  look  after 
the  baggage  and  effects. 

Lindsay  resembled  the  merry,  diabolical 
Panurge  of  Rabelais,  in  that  he  had  a  coat 
studded  wonderfully  with  pockets.  A  care- 
ful inventory  revealed  twenty-eight.  Their 
main  purpose  was  to  accommoaate  Lind- 
say's "sandwiches/*  as  he  termed  little 
flat  flasks  of  Scotch  whiskey. 

The  baggage  was  sent  to  Stockton-on- 
Tees,  and  thither  went  Mantell  and  Lind- 
say. They  arrived  at  night.  The  baggage 
had  been  unloaded  on  the  station  platform 
by  the  trainmen.  A  light  snow  was  falling, 
and  there  were  no  carts  anywhere  in  sight. 

"You  stay  here  and  watch  the  stuff,  and 
I'll  go  hunt  some  kind  of  a  wagon  to  get 
it  in  out  of  the  wet,"  said  Lindsay  to 
Mantell.  "And  you'd  better  take  another 
'sandwich*  to  keep  out  the  cold." 

"All  right,"  Mantell  assented,  to  both 
propositions. 

It  wasn't  cold,  in  spite  of  the  snow,  and 
Mantell  nestled  comfortably  among  the 
trunks  and  bags  to  await  Lindsay's  return. 
Presently  he  fell  asleep. 

The  next  thing  he  knew,  Lindsay  was 
shaking  him  roughly. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       87 

"Wake  up,  Bob;  here's  a  telegram  for 
you,"  he  said. 

Mantell  sat  up  and  rubbed  his  eyes.  Then 
he  took  the  telegram,  and  tore  it  open 
sleepily.  But  the  contents,  read  by  the 
dim  light  from  the  station  window,  electrified 
him: 

"Have  to  go  to  the  Continent  for  a  few  weeks. 
Will  you  come  immediately  to  London  and  play  my 
parts? 

"HENRY  IRVING." 

Mantell  was  dumbfounded.  But  thrills 
of  happiness  chased  each  other  up  and 
down  his  spine.  The  great  Irving,  then, 
had  seen  him  act!  Irving,  of  all  men,  had 
discovered  in  him  genius ! 

"What  must  I  do?"  he  asked  Lindsay. 

"Do,  y*  ninny?  Go,  of  course!" 

"All  right,  and  you're  coming  along," 
said  Mantell. 

A  London-bound  train  whistled  down  the 
track.  The  two  young  actors  hastily  picked 
their  own  luggage  out  of  the  heap  before 
them,  and  when  the  train  puffed  up,  they 
sprang  into  a  compartment,  leaving 
Knight's  effects  to  shift  for  themselves. 

On  arriving  in  London,  they  went  to 
apartments  Lindsay  had  formerly  occu- 
pied. Mantell,  in  his  excitement,  knew  it 
would  be  useless  to  go  to  bed.  He  decided 
to  "brush  up"  on  Hamlet,  The  porter  had 


88       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

just  brought  his  little  wardrobe  trunk. 
Mantell  opened  it.  He  had  been  robbed! 
The  Hamlet  compartment  was  empty,  ex- 
cept for  the  skull  of  Yorick.  He  picked  up 
the  skull.  A  folded  paper  fell  out.  He 
opened  it  and  read: 

"Telegram  all  a  joke." 

He  turned  on  Lindsay,  who  had  a  grin 
all  over  his  face.  He  picked  up  the  skull 
angrily,  and  hurled  it  with  all  his  force  at 
the  head  of  the  practical  joker.  He  missed 
his  aim.  The  skull  hit  the  wall,  and  was 
shivered  in  a  hundred  pieces. 

The  clatter  really  woke  up  the  dreamer 
this  time.  He  was  lying  amid  the  baggage 
on  the  station  platform.  Lindsay  was  com- 
ing up  with  a  handcart  he  had  borrowed. 
The  rattle  of  the  iron  wheels  on  the  cobble- 
stones resembled  the  clatter  of  the  shattered 
skull.  It  had  been  one  of  those  peculiar 
dreams  in  which  the  dreamer  dreams  he 
is  awake. 

But  stay  —  was  there  nothing  more  in  it 
than  an  idle  dream?  Did  not  it  reveal  to 
the  young  actor,  more  clearly  than  any- 
thing else  could  have  done,  the  secret,  sub- 
conscious confidence  he  had  in  his  ability? 
He  could  play  Irving's  parts,  if  he  had  the 
chance!  This  confidence  in  himself,  com- 
bined with  an  iron  determination  to  realize 
the  best  that  was  in  him,  caused  Robert 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       89 

Mantell  in  later  years  to  overcome  obstacles 
that  heaped  themselves  before  him  like  the 
granite  sides  of  impassable  mountains. 

Mantell's  engagement  with  Knight  came 
to  an  end  after  the  London  run.  He  took 
lodgings  in  the  great  city  at  half  a  crown  a 
week,  and,  as  his  savings  from  the  lean 
salary  he  had  received  the  past  year  were 
small,  he  lived  very  economically  on  bacon, 
bread,  and  watercress. 

He  discovered  during  this  period  a  new 
way  of  fooling  his  stomach.  He  would 
stand  before  a  restaurant,  feast  on  the  odors 
coming  from  the  good  things  cooking  inside, 
rolling  a  small  piece  of  tobacco  about  in  his 
mouth  at  the  same  time,  and  presently 
walk  away  with  the  impression  he  had  had 
a  square  meal.  Verily,  a  strong  imagination 
was  a  valuable  asset  to  a  young  actor  in 
those  days. 

Stage  work  was  scarce  in  London  that 
summer,  and  Mantell  could  find  nothing 
to  do.  His  savings  gradually  dwindled 
down  to  a  three-penny  bit,  which  had  the 
misfortune  to  be  made  of  lead  in  place  of 
silver.  He  walked  boldly  into  a  tobacco 
shop  and  asked  for  an  ounce  of  black  twist. 
The  proprietor,  an  evil-faced  individual,  cut 
off  the  amount  as  carefully  as  Shylock,  and 
wrapped  it  up.  Mantell  put  the  package 
into  his  pocket,  laid  the  three-penny  bit  on 


90       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

the  counter  gently  so  it  wouldn't  make  a 
telltale  sound,  and  started  for  the  door. 

"  Here,  you,  what  are  you  trying  to  pass 
on  me?"  yelled  the  shopkeeper,  as  his 
customer  was  disappearing  down  the  steps. 

"What's  the  matter?"  countered  Man- 
tell,  turning  sharply. 

"This  is  lead,"  said  the  tobacconist,  with 
a  threat  in  his  voice. 

"That!"  exclaimed  Mantell  in  feigned 
surprise,  returning  and  picking  up  the  coin. 
"Call  that  lead?"  Then,  indignantly: 
"Here,  take  your  old  tobacco.  You  don't 
know  good  money  when  you  see  it!" 

He  threw  down  the  package,  thrust  the 
coin  into  his  pocket,  tossed  his  head,  and 
strutted  out  of  the  shop  with  offended 
dignity. 

The  performance  was  repeated,  with 
variations,  but  with  the  same  ultimate 
result,  in  two  or  three  other  tobacco  shops, 
and  then  the  young  actor,  having  nothing  else 
to  do,  strolled  idly  into  the  National  Gallery. 

A  new  and  rather  gruesome  painting  of 
Ophelia  lying  dead  in  the  water  attracted 
his  attention.  It  was  a  product  of  the 
French  realistic  school.  He  sat  down  on  a 
bench  in  front  of  it,  and  gazed  at  it  for 
several  minutes.  Two  women  sat  near  him 
on  the  bench.  When  they  arose  and  started 
to  leave,  Mantell  saw  a  blue  envelope  lying 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       91 

there.  It  was  not  sealed.  He  opened  it. 
His  eyes  nearly  popped  from  his  head. 
There  before  him  were  200  pounds  in  Bank 
of  England  notes. 

His  struggle  with  himself  was  of  only  a 
moment's  duration.  Then  he  ran  after  the 
two  women.  He  caught  up  with  them  as 
they  were  entering  a  cab. 

"Did  you  drop  something?*'  he  asked. 

The  women  went  through  their  effects. 
Then,  one  of  them  exclaimed  excitedly: 

"Oh,  the  money!  It  was  in  a  blue  en- 
velope! Two  hundred  pounds!  Give  it  to 
me,  quick!" 

Mantell  handed  the  envelope  to  her. 
She  hastily  drew  out  the  money  and 
counted  it.  There  was  a  great  sigh  of  relief. 

;'Yes!  It's  all  there!   Drive  on,  cabby!" 

"Not  so  much  as  a  *  thank  you,'"  mused 
Mantell.  "But,  I  wasn't  a  thief,  anyhow. 
That's  some  consolation." 

He  started  slowly  and  aimlessly  down 
the  street,  musing  on  the  ingratitude  of 
some  people. 

"Hello,  Mantell!"  yelled  a  voice  with  a 
familiar  ring.  "  Want  a  job? " 

He  looked  up  quickly.  There  stood  an  actor 
named  Somerset  wrhom  he  had  known  the 
few  weeks  he  had  played  with  Miss  Wallis. 

"Do  I  want  a  job?  Do  I  want  a  —  Sure 
thing,  you  idiot!  What  is  it?" 


92       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"Playing  Orlando." 

"I'll  play  anything.   Any  money  in  it?" 

"Five  pounds  a  week." 

"  Impossible  —  anything  down?  " 

"Here's  a  sovereign." 

"Thank  you  —  you're  talking  real  talk  — 
what's  the  company?" 

"  Miss  WalhV  —  she  wants  you  for  leads. 
She  told  me  to  look  you  up,  and  I've 
stumbled  across  you." 

"Bully  for  her.  Here  goes  my  last 
'threppence." 

With  all  his  force,  Mantell  threw  away 
his  leaden  coin. 

Books  on  morality  for  the  young  are 
invited  to  copy  the  above  anecdote  of  the 
quick  reward  of  virtue.  It  is  as  good  as 
anything  ever  invented  by  the  authors  of 
Sunday  school  literature,  and  has  the  merit 
of  being  strictly  true.  Doubtless,  had 
Mantell  pocketed  the  200  pounds,  he  would 
have  got  drunk  to  drown  an  evil  conscience. 
In  that  condition,  he  would  have  staggered 
down  the  street,  and,  with  a  fiendish  laugh, 
would  have  killed  a  little  innocent  child 
that  accidentally  ran  across  his  path.  Then, 
he  would  have  been  hung  up  on  the  gallows 
for  the  brutal  murder.  As  it  was,  he  gave 
the  money  back,  and  immediately  fell  into 
a  fortune  of  $25  a  week. 

In  adapting  the  story  for  the  Sunday 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       93 

school  books,  however,  I  would  caution  the 
editor  to  be  discreetly  silent  about  the 
leaden  nickel  our  hero  was  trying  to  pass  on 
an  innocent  tobacconist  awhile  ago.  No 
use  tainting  a  story  which  contains  so 
beautiful  a  lesson. 

Mantel!  joined  Miss  Wallis  at  the  Theatre 
Royal,  Birmingham,  and  played  with  her 
successfully  not  only  Orlando,  but  also 
Claude  Melnotte,  in  "The  Lady  of  Lyons," 
and  Romeo. 

It  was  while  playing  Romeo  with  Miss 
Wallis  just  before  Christmas  that  there 
happened  one  of  those  amusing  incidents 
so  pat  that  they  are  scarcely  credible.  And 
yet,  any  veteran  of  the  stage  can  recall  two 
or  three  similar  ones  in  his  own  experience. 

Mantell  and  Miss  Wallis  were  doing  the 
balcony  scene.  They  had  reached  the 
climax  of  luxurious  Italian  passion. 

"I  would  I  were  thy  bird,"  uttered 
Romeo,  deliciously. 

Juliet  had  opened  her  sweet  lips  to  reply, 
when  there  was  a  raucous  "Quack!  Quack!" 
and  a  great  fat  goose  came  fluttering 
clumsily  from  the  glorious  Italian  sky.  It 
hit  the  floor,  and  waddled  off  into  the  wings 
in  awkward  excitement. 

The  audience  howled,  and  the  curtain 
had  to  be  rung  down.  Miss  Wallis  burst 
into  tears  and  became  hysterical.  Whipping 


94      ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

out  a  little  penknife,  she  started  on  a  hunt 
for  the  goose,  with  the  full  intention  of 
slitting  its  ill-starred  throat.  But  the  stage 
hands,  to  whom  the  bird  belonged,  had 
smuggled  it  away. 

The  goose  was  being  fattened  for  Christ- 
mas. It  had  become  a  great  pet  around  the 
theatre,  and  was  given  the  freedom  of  the 
stage  when  the  men  were  at  work  between 
performances.  On  this  particular  night,  the 
stage  hands  had  forgotten  to  pen  it  up 
before  raising  the  curtain.  The  goose  had 
wandered  up  into  the  paint  loft  with  the 
scenic  artist.  With  an  instinct  almost  fiend- 
ish, it  had  tumbled  from  its  perch  at  the 
most  inopportune  moment  of  the  entire 
play. 

The  following  February,  1881,  Mantell 
renewed  his  contract  with  Miss  Wallis, 
including  in  it,  for  small  roles,  Marie  Shel- 
don, his  newly  acquired  bride,  whom  he 
had  met  some  tune  before  in  Glasgow. 
This  arrangement  continued  until  about 
Easter,  when  Mantell  joined  the  famous 
actor-manager  and  dramatist,  Dion  Bouci- 
cault,  with  whom  he  played  juvenile  leads 
in  a  series  of  revivals  of  Boucicault's  own 
plays,  "The  Shaughraun,"  "The  Colleen 
Bawn"  and  "Kerry." 

After  four  weeks  with  Boucicault  in 
Sheffield,  Liverpool,  Leeds  and  Birming- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       95 

ham,  Man  tell  rejoined  Miss  Wallis  to  create 
the  part  of  Paul  in  a  new  stage  version  of 
"Paul  and  Virginia."  The  play  was  a  fail- 
ure, but  Mantell  remained  for  a  time  with 
Miss  Wallis,  appearing  in  his  former  r61es 
and  adding  Benedict. 

Early  in  1882,  Mantell  began  an  engage- 
ment as  leading  man  with  the  most  pictur- 
esque star  he  supported  in  his  entire  career 
—  Marie  De  Grey,  an  extraordinarily  beau- 
tiful woman  of  gypsy  blood.  The  feature 
of  her  repertoire  was  a  gorgeous  production 
of  "Amy  Robsart,"  dramatized  from  Scott. 
She  had,  of  course,  the  title  part,  and 
Mantell  played  the  Earl  of  Leicester. 

Perhaps  never,  on  the  English  stage,  was 
seen  so  glorious  a  creature  as  Amy,  with 
her  sparkling  black  eyes,  her  curly  raven 
hair,  and  her  gown  lavish  in  color,  gold 
and  lace  to  the  point  of  barbarism. 

Mantell  instantly,  with  his  handsome  face 
and  form,  won  the  admiration  of  the 
temperamental  gypsy.  She  gave  him  every 
r61e  in  which  she  thought  he  would  shine  — 
Romeo,  Orlando,  Charles  Surface  and 
Young  Marlow,  in  addition  to  Leicester. 
She  paid  him  eight  pounds  a  week,  an 
unusual  salary  then  for  a  provincial  leading 
man. 

So  lavish  was  she  with  her  praise  of  his 
acting  and  her  efforts  to  advance  him  in 


96       ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

the  good  graces  of  their  audiences,  that, 
when  the  time  came  for  him  to  leave  her, 
he  was  put  in  a  delicate  position,  from 
which,  in  spite  of  his  usual  tact  and  diplo- 
macy, he  did  not  succeed  in  extricating 
himself  without  a  scene. 

The  rupture  came  on  the  night  of  August 
12  in  Hull.  Marie  De  Grey  had  put  on  a 
production  of  "  Macbeth"  to  give  her  young 
leading  man  a  chance  as  the  Thane.  There 
had  been  only  three  days'  rehearsal,  and 
Mantell  remembers  the  performance  as  a 
"particularly  awful"  one.  Marie  De  Grey, 
however,  had  only  words  of  praise  after  the 
fall  of  the  last  curtain.  In  the  midst  of  the 
exchange  of  compliments,  for  Mantell  was 
not  to  be  left  behind  in  an  affair  of  courtesy 
and  was  bestowing  on  Lady  Macbeth  the 
same  sort  of  adulation  the  Thane  of  Cawdor 
was  receiving,  the  young  actor  announced, 
as  delicately  as  he  could,  that  he  had  been 
called  to  America,  and  must  soon  sail. 
The  gypsy  was  at  first  stunned,  and  then 
she  flew  into  a  passion  and  a  violent  quarrel 
followed. 

Five  days  later,  Robert  Mantell  boarded 
a  steamer  at  Queenstown.  He  never  saw 
Marie  De  Grey  again.  Nor  ever  again  did 
he  play  in  the  British  Isles,  except  for  a  few 
nights  the  following  summer  of  1883  at 
the  Theatre  Royal,  Glasgow.  The  play 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       97 

was  called,  appropriately  enough,  "The  Old 
Love  and  the  New.*'  He  was  discarding 
forever  the  Old  World  —  hereafter,  he  be- 
longs exclusively  to  the  New. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Leaping  into  a  Blaze  of  Glory. 

ROBERT    MANTELL  was   soon   to 
score  in  America  the  tremendous 
hit  that  made  him  the  idol  of  the 
hour,  and  that  established  his  name 
forever  in  the  hall  of  theatrical  fame.    But 
the  triumph  was  deferred  for  a  year. 

The  "call  to  America, "  which  had  served 
an  effective  purpose  in  the  scene  with  the 
gypsy  star,  had  been  made  by  the  theatri- 
cal magnate  Stetson,  who  planned  to  estab- 
lish a  Shakespearean  stock  company  in  his 
New  York  theatre.  He  had  engaged  Mantell 
for  leading  parts  and  Marie  Sheldon  for 
minor  roles,  at  a  combined  salary  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  a 
figure  that  seemed  scarcely  believable  to 
the  young  actor. 

Stetson's  plans  fell  through  in  the  early 
autumn.  Brooks  and  Dickson,  however, 
who  were  on  the  lookout  for  an  actor  of  the 
type  of  Mantell  for  the  part  of  Sir  Clement 
Huntingford  in  their  new  melodrama,  "The 
World,"  gladly  took  the  contract  off  Stet- 
son's hands.  Mantell  opened  at  the  Grand 

98 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE       99 

Opera  House  shortly  afterward.  It  was  the 
first  time  he  had  played  a  leading  part  in 
America. 

The  stay  of  "The  World"  in  New  York 
was  brief.  It  was  sent  on  tour.  But  Brooks 
and  Dickson  recalled  Mantell  from  the 
road  to  create  Jack  Hearn  in  "The  Romany 
Rye,"  which  endured  throughout  the  sea- 
son. After  a  brief  visit  to  Scotland,  Mantell 
returned  to  New  York,  and  to  triumph. 

"On  the  opening  night  of  *  Fedora/ 
Robert  Mantell  was  the  handsomest  figure 
that  ever  greeted  a  feminine  eye,"  a  woman 
who  was  in  that  audience  at  the  Fourteenth- 
Street  Theatre  told  me  long  afterward. 

Something  like  that  must  have  been  the 
case,  for  Robert  Mantell,  by  the  one  per- 
formance of  Loris  Ipanoff  that  red-letter 
night  of  October  1,  1883,  sprang  instantly 
from  obscurity  into  the  full  blaze  of  the 
limelight.  The  Fourteenth-Street  Theatre 
thereafter  was  taxed  to  the  utmost.  The 
handsome  young  Scotchman  was  lionized 
for  the  season  by  the  dashing  crowds  of 
Broadway. 

Fanny  Davenport  had  secured  from  Vic- 
torien  Sardou  the  American  rights  to  his 
new  play,  "Fedora,"  by  the  payment  down 
of  a  cool  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  in 
cash.  She  had  pawned  everything  she  pos- 
sessed to  raise  the  money,  including  a  neck- 


100     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

lace  of  twenty-five  magnificent  diamonds 
valued  at  a  thousand  dollars  each. 

Miss  Davenport,  as  can  well  be  imagined, 
was  at  a  high  nervous  tension  on  the  opening 
night  in  New  York.  Either  the  romantic 
Russian  play  from  the  pen  of  the  prolific 
Frenchman  must  succeed  or  she  must  stare 
pauperism  in  the  face. 

The  names  of  Sardou  and  Davenport 
filled  the  theatre  with  the  elite  of  New  York. 
It  looked  like  a  millionaire  night  at  the 
opera.  The  audience  expected  great  things 
—  great  sensations  —  great  thrills. 

The  swish  of  the  curtain  as  it  went  down 
on  the  first  act  was  distinctly  audible. 
There  was  scarcely  a  ripple  of  even  polite 
applause.  Decidedly  the  audience  was  dis- 
appointed. Miss  Davenport  was  gloomy 
and  downcast.  Mantell  cheered  her  up  the 
best  he  could. 

The  curtain  fell  on  the  second  act.  Again 
there  was  no  applause.  Fanny  Davenport 
was  in  tears.  Her  little  fortune  had  been 
thrown  away. 

But  Mantell  became  angry.  His  Scotch 
blood  rose  up. 

"We'll  hit  'em  next  time,  the  icebergs!" 
he  said  to  Miss  Davenport,  with  something 
near  a  savage  growl  in  his  voice. 

The  spirit  was  contagious.  The  star  dried 
her  eyes. 


UOLKS  IN  WHICH  MANTKLL  STAHTLKI)  XKW  YORK 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     101 

"All  right,"  she  replied,  and  set  her  teeth. 

The  curtain  went  up.  Loris  Ipanoff,  the 
outlaw,  and  Fedora,  the  tigress,  buckled 
down  to  work  like  grim  death. 

Fedora's  lover  had  been  assassinated. 
Loris,  the  suspect,  had  been  tracked  down, 
and  was  now  confronted  by  the  woman. 
She  was  cross-questioning  him. 

Yes,  he  had  seen  the  slain  man.  He  had 
caught  him  and  his  own  fiancee  together, 
she  sitting  on  his  knee. 

The  spell  of  the  story  was  beginning  to 
work.  The  spirit  of  the  players  was  crossing 
the  footlights.  The  audience  became  tense. 

How,  now,  was  Loris  Ipanoff  going  to 
establish  his  innocence,  after  this  damning 
admission? 

"I  killed  him!" 

The  confession  was  tremendously  star- 
tling. It  had  been  wholly  unexpected.  The 
audience  forgot  itself.  Scores  sprang  to  their 
feet  and  yelled. 

"Kill  them  both!  Kill  them  both!" 
shrieked  Fedora. 

Again  there  was  an  answering  yell  from 
the  other  side  of  the  footlights. 

The  play  was  made ! 

A  few  weeks  later,  Fanny  Davenport,  one 
night  before  the  curtain  went  up,  dangled  a 
magnificent  diamond  necklace  in  front  of 
Mantell's  eyes. 


102     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"I  got  it  back,"  she  said,  happily. 

There  is  no  treason  to  the  memory  of 
Fanny  Davenport  in  asserting  that  Loris 
Ipanoff  was  the  making  of  "Fedora."  That 
is  the  report  of  the  press  of  the  period  and 
the  opinion  expressed  after  all  these  years 
by  the  theatregoers  who  saw  the  play  in  its 
prime.  Miss  Davenport  herself  acknowl- 
edged it,  and  instead  of  becoming  jealous 
and  ridding  herself  of  so  "dangerous"  a 
leading  man,  she  raised  his  salary  to  a  hand- 
some figure. 

The  estimate  in  which  Mantell  was  held 
by  universal  voice,  in  the  days  of  "Fedora" 
and  those  immediately  following,  can  be 
gathered  from  this  appreciation  of  his  work 
from  a  leading  journal  glancing  at  the 
stars  then  shining  in  the  New  York  con- 
stellation: 

"The  stage  shows  us  so  many  robustuous 
creatures  who  tear  a  passion  to  pieces  and 
rend  the  air  with  a  great  volume  of  rhetoric 
that  there  is  nothing  pleasanter  in  life  than 
to  turn  from  them  and  grow  restful  in  the 
natural  fire  of  Mr.  Mantell,  the  ease  of  Mr. 
John  Gilbert,  the  artless  pleasing  of  Miss 
Rehan  or  the  unconscious  dignity  and  grace 
of  Miss  Millward.  These  clever  folks  have 
gained  eminence  by  fine  talent  united  to  a 
simple  expression  of  nature  in  the  characters 
they  assume  and  the  emotions  they  endure. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     103 

It  requires  indeed  much  art  to  present  this 
simplicity.  For,  paradoxical  though  the  state- 
ment may  seem,  there  appears  to  be  nothing 
so  hard  to  humanity  as  to  be  natural." 

New  York,  and,  through  New  York,  all 
theatregoing  America,  worshipped  at  the 
shrine  of  the  young  Scotch  genius  who  had 
burst  so  suddenly  from  obscurity.  The 
managers  were  quick  to  recognize  his  value 
from  a  commercial  standpoint.  He  was 
besieged  with  offers.  One  of  them,  made  by 
Daniel  Frohman  at  a  figure  then  considered 
almost  fabulous,  ten  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  was  accepted.  A  contract  was  en- 
tered into,  which  was  to  take  effect  after 
the  expiration  of  the  engagement  of  "Fe- 
dora." The  provisions  of  the  contract, 
however,  were  never  fully  carried  out, 
though  Mantell  appeared  for  a  time  under 
Frohman's  management. 

The  triumph  in  "Fedora"  was  to  be 
repeated  long  afterward  by  the  very  same 
actor,  Robert  Bruce  Mantell,  in  another 
play,  "Richard  III."  Stage  history  con- 
tains no  duplicate  so  strange.  The  story 
shall  be  told  in  full  in  its  proper  turn.  I 
wish  merely  to  touch  upon  it  here  to  illus- 
trate a  point.  Mantell,  through  unfortu- 
nate legal  proceedings,  was  shut  out  of  New 
York  for  a  period  of  ten  years.  The  great 
city  forgot  him.  When  his  difficulties  were 


104     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

straightened  out  and  he  returned,  he  found 
himself  a  stranger.  But  one  night,  he 
electrified  Broadway  with  Richard  III,  just 
as  once,  long  ago,  he  had  dazzled  the  blase 
street  with  Loris  Ipanoff.  A  strange  result 
followed.  Older  theatregoers  who  remem- 
bered him  in  the  days  of  his  first  triumph 
had  a  weird  feeling  that  this  was  not  the 
idol  of  the  eighties.  The  feeling  persists 
today.  These  veteran  lovers  of  the  drama 
have  encountered  two  entirely  different 
personages  in  one.  To  them  the  romantic 
Mantell  is  no  more.  The  tragic  Mantell 
has  not  replaced  him  —  he  is  simply  some- 
body else. 

Mantell  played  the  entire  season  of  1883-4 
in  "Fedora,"  and  then  went  back  to  Scot- 
land for  the  summer.  Upon  his  return  to 
America,  he  was  assigned  the  leading  r61e 
of  Gilbert  Vaughn  in  "Called  Back,"  under 
the  management  of  the  Mallory  Brothers 
and  the  direction  of  Daniel  Frohman.  The 
play  was  fairly  successful,  and  remained  in 
New  York  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  for 
eight  weeks.  It  then  went  on  tour,  and 
stayed  out  until  early  in  the  spring. 

Steele  Mackaye,  for  whom  the  famous 
Lyceum  Theatre  had  just  been  built,  was 
on  the  lookout  for  talent  for  his  own  play, 
"Dakolar,"  with  which  he  intended  to 
dedicate  the  new  theatre.  He  chose  Robert 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     105 

Mantell  for  the  leading  part.  With  an 
intuition  that  was  all  but  faultless,  for 
which  Mackaye  was  famous,  he  engaged 
two  other  young  people,  then  new  to  the 
stage,  John  Mason  and  Viola  Allen. 

On  April  6,  1885,  "Dakolar"  was 
launched,  and  the  Lyceum  was  started  on 
its  long  and  honorable  career.  "Dakolar," 
like  "Called  Back,"  ran  eight  weeks  in 
New  York.  Mantell,  during  the  period, 
added  materially  to  his  fame  as  a  matinee 
idol. 

Three  months  to  a  day  after  the  dedica- 
tion of  the  Lyceum,  Mantell  was  called  to 
Chicago  to  dedicate  another  theatre,  which 
also  became  famous  in  American  stage 
history,  McVicker's.  The  play  was  "True 
Nobility." 

"True  Nobility"  was  not  a  success,  and 
on  July  20  it  was  replaced  by  "  The  Marble 
Heart,"  which  for  many  years  held  a  promi- 
nent place  in  Mantell's  permanent  romantic 
repertoire.  With  him  in  the  cast,  at  the 
first  performance  in  Chicago,  were  Viola 
Allen  and  Herbert  Kelcey. 

Mantell  for  months  had  been  anxious  to 
play  Charles  Surface  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  Though  "The  Marble  Heart" 
was  a  success,  the  wishes  of  the  young 
actor  carried  so  much  weight  that  on 
August  3  a  special  production  of  "The 


106     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

School  for  Scandal"  was  staged  at  Mc- 
Vicker's.  It  ran  for  two  weeks,  during 
which  Charles  Surface  was  the  hero  of 
Chicago,  just  as  Loris  Ipanoff  had  been 
the  hero  of  New  York. 

Another  brief  rest  in  Scotland,  and  Man- 
tell  returned  to  America,  this  time  for  a 
second  season  with  Fanny  Davenport  in 
"Fedora."  The  Sardou  play  had  not  pros- 
pered phenomenally  with  a  substitute  Loris. 
Mantell,  consequently,  was  re-engaged  at  a 
salary  comparable  with  that  he  could  now 
command  in  new  productions.  His  return 
to  the  cast  made  possible  another  profitable 
engagement  in  New  York,  this  time  at  the 
Opera  Comique,  and  a  prosperous  tour  of 
the  country  for  the  entire  season. 

This  was  MantelPs  last  engagement  in 
support  of  a  star.  His  next  appearance  was 
as  a  star  himself,  and  a  star  he  has  been 
ever  since. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

In  Which  a  New  Star  Bursts  into  the  Firma- 
ment of  American  Theatredom. 

AUGUSTUS  PITOU,  a  shrewd  show- 
man, had  noted  the  effect  of  Loris 
Ipanoff  on  the  hearts  of  impression- 
able  femininity,   and   he    believed 
the  time  to  be  ripe  for  the  launching  of  the 
handsome  blonde  matinee  idol  as  a  star  in 
his  own  right. 

Pitou  secured  a  new  romantic  play  from 
John  Kellar,  entitled  "Tangled  Lives,"  and 
on  the  night  of  September  16,  1886,  at  New 
Haven,  Conn.,  Robert  Mantell  made  his 
stellar  d6but.  The  play  was  well  received, 
and  Mantell  and  Pitou  decided  it  was 
strong  enough  for  a  New  York  trial.  After 
touring  in  the  vicinity  of  the  metropolis 
for  a  few  weeks,  polishing  the  piece  and 
getting  the  company  in  shape,  they  opened 
at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Theatre  on  the  night 
of  November  13,  ignoring  the  "hoodoo." 

Though  "Tangled  Lives"  did  not  create 
any  profound  sensation  among  the  restless 
rovers  under  the  white  lights,  it  made  a 
favorable  impression,  and  enjoyed  a  run  of 
seven  weeks.  Mantell  then  played  for  two 
107 


108     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

weeks  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  in  "The  Marble 
Heart,"  which  Chicago  had  approved,  and 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  engagement,  Pitou 
started  with  his  new  star  on  the  longest 
tour  Mantell  had  yet  made,  extending  to 
the  Pacific  Coast.  It  was  on  June  14,  1887, 
at  the  "tail  end"  of  the  season,  that  Man- 
tell  made  his  first  appearance  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. "The  Marble  Heart"  was  the  vehicle 
of  his  debut  in  the  city  by  the  Golden  Gate. 

While  "  Tangled  Lives  "  and  "  The  Marble 
Heart"  were  the  foundation  stones  of  his 
career  as  a  romantic  star,  it  is  in  "  Monbars  " 
that  Mantell  is  most  vividly  remembered. 
Later,  "The  Corsican  Brothers"  became  a 
formidable  rival  to  the  French  pirate,  but 
even  Dumas'  twins  could  never  quite 
overshadow  him. 

The  cauterizing  of  an  ugly  wound  by  a 
red-hot  iron  is  vivid  yet  in  the  memory  of 
many  a  middle-aged  playgoer,  who  is  still 
inclined  to  believe  this  furnished  the  most 
thrilling  moment  he  ever  experienced  in  a 
theatre.  Monbars,  the  handsome  pirate, 
has  rescued  a  girl  from  a  mad  dog.  He 
appears  with  his  shirt  sleeve  torn,  and  his 
arm  all  lacerated  and  covered  with  blood. 
He  thrusts  a  poker  into  the  fire.  Presently 
it  glows  a  bright  red.  He  calmly  picks  up 
the  rod  and  applies  it  to  the  wound.  There 
is  a  sizzling  sound,  and  a  little  puff  of 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     109 

smoke.  Not  a  muscle  twitches.  The  man's 
nerves  are  of  iron.  The  audience  applauds 
wildly. 

There  has  been  nearly  as  much  specula- 
tion over  how  Mantell  did  that  little  bit  of 
cauterizing  as  there  has  been  over  Kellar's 
levitation  trick.  Everybody  has  had  his 
theory.  A  bit  of  raw  beef  and  a  red  hot 
poker  has  been  the  favorite  explanation. 
Others  contended  for  a  cold  poker  and 
chemicals. 

"In  reality,"  Mr.  Mantell  told  me,  "I 
used  a  very  thin  but  tough  piece  of  leather, 
which  I  bound  to  my  arm  by  a  flesh- 
colored  rubber  band  before  putting  on 
any  make-up.  On  this  leather  I  laid  a 
flattened  bit  of  cobblers'  wax  about  the 
size  of  a  pea.  Then  I  painted  my  arm,  the 
leather,  wax  and  all,  to  represent  the  bite 
of  the  dog.  The  poker  actually  was  heated 
to  a  red  glow.  It  was  applied  carefully  to 
the  wax.  Of  course,  there  was  a  sound  as 
of  burning  flesh  and  a  puff  of  smoke. 

"One  night  when  I  was  coolly  applying 
the  poker  to  the  wound,  the  red-hot  iron 
slipped,  and  there  was  a  real  sizzling  of  the 
flesh.  The  iron-nerved  hero  let  out  a  yell 
of  pain  that  could  be  heard  four  blocks, 
dropped  the  poker  and  broke  up  the  scene." 

The  story  of  how  Mantell  and  Pitou 
acquired  the  stage  rights  to  "Monbars" 


110     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

has  a  romantic  tinge.  There  was,  in  those 
days,  an  old  French  wine  merchant  in  New 
York  named  Merabel,  whose  establishment 
was  a  popular  resort  for  stage  people. 
Merabel  himself  was  intensely  interested 
in  the  theatre,  and  made  it  a  rule  of  his  life 
to  see  that  his  Thespian  friends  had  the 
best  and  most  delicate  wines  obtainable  in 
America  and  Europe. 

A  frequenter  of  this  shop  was  a  giant 
Frenchman  by  the  name  of  Louis  Natal, 
who  might  have  been  the  original  of  Porthos 
in  the  D'Artagnan  romances.  He  had  the 
strength  of  an  ox,  but  —  queer  as  it  may 
sound  —  he  had  a  brain  of  equal  power  and 
of  rare  delicacy. 

Natal,  years  before,  had  written  a  play 
which  had  enjoyed  a  splendid  success  in 
Paris  and  the  French  provinces.  One  day  at 
Merabel's  he  took  Mantell  aside  and  told 
him  confidentially  that  he  had  a  drama  that 
nobody  else  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
could  possibly  do. 

"I  have  translated  it  myself,"  said  Natal, 
"from  a  French  original  I  wrote  years  ago. 
It  has  never  been  done  in  English  that  I 
know  of;  but  if  it  has,  it  has  been  played  in 
a  pirated  and  garbled  version.  It  is  just 
the  thing  for  you." 

"All  right,"  said  Mantell,  with  the  air 
soon  acquired  by  a  popular  star  who  has  a 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     111 

play  thrust  under  his  nose  every  other  day, 
"bring  it  over  to  Pitou's  office  and  I'll  read 
it." 

"No  you  won't,"  answered  Louis, 
shrewdly  recognizing  the  tone.  "I'll  read 
it  myself  to  you  and  'Gus.'  I  tell  you,  it  is 
something  you  will  want." 

Man  tell  was  a  little  impressed  by  Natal 's 
manner. 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  "come  around 
tomorrow  afternoon,  and  we'll  hear  it." 

The  big  Frenchman  brought  "Monbars" 
over  next  day,  and  read  it  to  the  actor  and 
his  manager.  It  sounded  fine.  Pitou  wanted 
to  close  a  deal  at  once,  but  Mantell  wished 
first  to  consult  Archie  Lindsay,  his  old 
friend  of  the  liquid  Scotch  "sandwiches," 
who  was  then  with  him  in  New  York. 
Lindsay  had  a  marvelous  memory,  and 
knew  everything  there  was  to  be  known 
about  old  plays.  Mantell  wanted  to  ask 
him  about  a  possible  earlier  English  version 
of  the  one  he  had  just  heard. 

Concealing  his  real  desire  to  see  Lindsay, 
Mantell  said  he  would  think  the  matter 
over,  and  invited  Natal  and  Pitou  to  meet 
him  at  the  Lambs  Club  that  evening  for 
his  answer. 

The  actor  hurried  home.  He  couldn't  find 
Lindsay.  The  Scotchman's  taste  for  "  sand- 
wiches" had  allured  him  to  a  "banquet." 


112     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

That  evening,  Mantell,  Pitou  and  Natal 
met  at  the  club,  and  concluded  a  deal,  by 
which  the  two  partners  agreed  to  pay  the 
Frenchman  five  hundred  dollars  down,  and 
twelve  and  one-half  per  cent  of  the  gross 
receipts  of  every  performance  of  "Mon- 
bars." 

After  the  conclusion  of  this  labor,  they 
turned  to  refreshment.  Natal 's  capacity  for 
wine  and  stronger  liquids  was  proverbial  in 
Gotham's  theatrical  circles  in  those  days. 
Nobody  had  ever  known  him  to  refuse  a 
glass  in  good  fellowship,  and  yet  nobody 
had  ever  seen  him  stagger. 

Mantell  and  Pitou  started  out  to  get 
Natal  drunk  for  once.  They  entered  into  a 
secret  conspiracy  with  the  waiter,  by  which 
their  own  drinks  were  to  be  diluted  to  the 
uttermost  point  where  color  could  be  re- 
tained, while  Natal's  were  to  be  "spiked" 
heavily  with  brandy. 

Round  after  round  was  ordered  and 
drunk,  but  the  Frenchman  never  faltered. 
Mantell  and  Pitou  began  to  feel  dizzy,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  waiter  was  living 
strictly  up  to  instructions.  Then  in  their 
ears  began  to  be  heard  the  roar  and  buzz 
that  tell  the  wise  man  he  has  had  enough 
liquid  joy  for  one  night.  But  they  sat  a 
little  longer,  and  their  heads  drooped. 

Natal,  then,  with  the  look  of  pity  the 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     113 

strong  feel  for  the  weakness  of  mortals  not 
so  well  constituted,  picked  up  both  his 
friends,  tucked  one  under  each  arm,  carried 
them  down  the  steps  of  the  club  without  the 
slightest  tremor  of  foot,  and  stowed  them 
safely  away  in  a  cab.  He  paid  the  driver, 
and  gave  him  directions  as  to  where  he  was 
to  set  down  the  revellers. 

A  few  days  later,  Archie  Lindsay  turned 
up. 

"Here  you  are  at  last,  you  old  Scotch 
loafer,"  greeted  Mantell.  "I've  wanted  to 
see  you  to  ask  you  about  a  new  play  I've 
bought,"  and  he  began  sketching  the  story. 

A  queer  light  came  into  Lindsay's  eyes. 

Mantell  went  on  to  relate  how  the  pirate, 
after  numerous  adventures,  lay  on  a  sick 
bed,  and  how  a  physician  came  in  and 
proved  to  him  he  had  been  poisoned.  The 
doctor  poured  a  clear  acid  into  a  glass  from 
which  Monbars  had  been  drinking.  The 
fluid  the  pirate  had  thought  to  be  water 
changed  to  a  jet  black. 

"What  I  want  to  know,"  said  Mantell, 
"is  how  I'm  going  to  convert  that  blasted 
water  into  ink.  Natal  hasn't  given  any 
directions." 

"Wait,  Bob,  and  I'll  show  you,"  said 
Lindsay. 

He  went  over  to  a  huge  trunk  filled  with 
odds  and  ends,  and  took  out  a  great  pile  of 


114     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

six-penny  plays,  bound  in  paper.  He 
searched  through  them  rapidly,  and  finally 
dug  out  one. 

"Here's  your  receipt,"  he  said,  "and 
here's  your  play,  and  you're  a  bloomin* 
fool  for  buying  it,  for  there's  no  royalty 
on  it." 

Mantell  grew  angry. 

"See  what  your  cursed  spree  has  cost 
me,"  he  cried  out,  and  flung  the  contract 
with  Natal  in  Lindsay's  face. 

But  the  bargain  had  been  made,  and  it 
was  lived  up  to.  Natal's  version  of  his  old 
French  play  was  found  to  be  very  much 
superior  to  the  pirated  English  version, 
which  had  had  only  a  brief  career  in  the 
British  Isles,  and  that  many  years  back. 
It  was  even  better  than  the  French  original, 
for  the  more  mature  Natal  had  introduced 
a  number  of  dramatic  features  lacking  in 
his  first  draft.  Mantell's  "Monbars"  was 
thus,  to  all  practical  intents,  a  new  play, 
and  in  it  he  reached  the  climax  of  his  fame 
as  a  romantic  actor.  But  every  week  when 
he  paid  the  royalty,  he  felt  like  punching 
Lindsay's  face.  For,  armed  with  the  old 
English  version,  he  could  have  driven  a 
much  better  bargain  with  Natal. 

"Monbars"  was  launched  at  Reading, 
Pa.,  on  the  night  of  September  26,  1887. 
The  first  performance  in  New  York  was 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     115 

given  on  the  night  of  March  13,  1888,  and 
the  run  continued  well  into  May. 

The  New  York  premiere  was  scheduled 
for  the  evening  of  March  12,  but  on  that 
day  there  blew  up  one  of  the  hardest  bliz- 
zards that  ever  struck  Manhattan.  Ex- 
cessive snow  accompanied  the  high  wind. 
Mantell  and  Pitou  lived  opposite  each 
other  on  Ninety-fifth  Street.  They  man- 
aged to  get  down  town  on  the  last  elevated 
train  that  succeeded  in  running  that  eve- 
ning. Only  one  other  player  reached  the 
theatre.  This  faithful  disciple  of  Roscius 
had  put  on  a  pair  of  high  boots,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  whirling  wind,  had  ploughed 
his  way  through  snow  knee-deep  the  entire 
distance  from  Sixty-sixth  Street.  He  was 
Ben  Ringold  —  "dear  old  Ben,"  as  Mantell 
remembers  him  —  and  he  deserves  a  monu- 
ment to  his  memory. 

While  on  the  subject  of  the  romantic 
plays  that  filled  up  the  first  period  of  Man- 
tell's  career  as  a  star,  it  may  be  as  well  to 
tell  here  an  amusing  story  of  "The  Veiled 
Picture,"  though  chronologically  it  belongs 
three  or  four  years  later. 

"The  Veiled  Picture"  held  an  important 
place  in  the  romantic  repertoire,  but  Mantell 
always  dreaded  to  play  it.  He  regarded  it 
as  his  "hoodoo."  Something  always  went 
wrong  during  a  performance. 


116     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"The  Veiled  Picture"  told  the  story  of  a 
conscience-stricken  artist.  He  had  killed  a 
man  and  married  his  victim's  sister.  The 
sister,  not  suspecting  the  author  of  the 
crime,  had  employed  a  detective  to  ferret 
out  the  murderer.  The  detective  got  on 
the  track  of  the  criminal  through  a  weird 
freak  of  psychology.  The  artist  became  the 
victim  of  hallucinations.  An  invisible  force 
guided  his  brush,  compelling  him  to  paint 
into  every  picture  a  raised  hand  holding  a 
dagger.  When  the  fit  had  passed,  the  artist 
would  destroy  the  painting.  But  the  de- 
tective finally  got  hold  of  one  of  these 
pictures.  The  "business"  of  the  play  was 
to  bring  it  onto  the  stage,  and  confront  the 
murderer  with  it. 

On  the  very  first  night  of  this  Zolaesque 
drama  in  Reading,  Pa.,  Albert  Bruning, 
who  played  the  detective,  couldn't  find  the 
picture  at  the  critical  moment.  He  ran  to 
the  property  room,  all  excited,  and  told 
the  property  man  to  give  him  anything  with 
a  frame  around  it.  The  property  man  hastily 
thrust  a  picture  into  his  hands,  and  Brun- 
ing, without  looking  at  it,  threw  a  veil  over 
it,  and  ran  onto  the  stage  just  in  time  to 
escape  missing  his  cue. 

He  set  the  veiled  picture  on  a  chair  with 
its  back  to  the  audience,  but  accidentally 
between  the  audience  and  a  strong  light. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     117 

Mantell,  as  the  guilty  artist,  and  Charlotte 
Behrens,  as  the  wife  and  sister,  were  placed 
before  it. 

"Did  you  paint  this  picture?"  asked  the 
detective. 

"I  did,"  replied  the  artist. 

"Then you  are  the  murderer!"  thundered 
the  sleuth,  tearing  away  the  veil. 

Mantell  snorted,  Miss  Behrens  giggled, 
and  the  audience  roared.  For  the  thin 
cardboard  on  which  the  picture  was  printed 
was  translucent,  and  the  strong  light  re- 
vealed to  the  audience  a  cheap,  highly 
colored  litho  of  President  Garfield,  and  the 
legend,  in  great  letters:  USE  GARFIELD 
TEA. 

"I  deserve  to  be  hanged  if  I  painted 
that,"  whispered  Mantell  to  Bruning. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Relating  how  the  Phantom  of  Shakespeare, 
Emulating  Hamlet's  Father's  Ghost,  Con- 
fronts the  Modern  Playwrights. 

IT  was  in  the  very  season  of  his  triumph 
in  "Monbars,"  that  Robert  Man  tell 
laid  the  first  stone  of  the  foundation 
of  his  classic  career  in  America.    His 
initial  essay  as  a  star  in  Shakespeare  was 
"Romeo  and  Juliet."    In  this  drama,  suf- 
fused with  the  warmth  of  Italian  passion, 
he  sought  to  blend  his  established  fame  as  a 
romanticist  with  his  ambitions  to  become  a 
classicist. 

The  venture  was  made  in  Dayton,  Ohio, 
October  1,  1887.  Fannie  Gillette  was  the 
Juliet.  The  performance  was  a  flat  failure, 
and  was  not  repeated.  This  was  not  a  very 
auspicious  beginning  for  the  star  who  later 
was  to  outshine  all  his  contemporaries  in 
Shakespeare.  MantelTs  next  plunge  into 
the  classics  occurred  a  few  weeks  later. 
This  time  the  play  was  "The  Lady  of 
Lyons."  Again  the  venture  was  a  failure. 

But  failure  only  goaded  the  ambitions  of 
the  stubborn  Scotchman,  and  before  the 
season  was  out,  he  made  a  third  attempt. 

118 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     119 

The  play,  this  time,  was  "Othello."  Re- 
membering his  good  luck  with  "Monbars" 
at  the  start  of  the  season,  he  returned  to 
Reading,  Pa.,  for  the  venture.  Reading 
was  a  favorite  "dog  town"  in  those  days. 
Here,  on  the  night  of  February  18,  1888, 
he  played  Othello  for  the  first  time  on  any 
stage.  It  will  be  remembered  that,  through 
the  courtesy  of  George  S.  Knight,  he  had 
played  lago  in  his  home  city,  Belfast.  But 
this  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  attempted 
the  Moor. 

The  mysterious,  intangible  verdict  of  the 
audience,  by  which  a  sensitive  actor  knows 
whether  he  has  scored  a  success  or  a  failure, 
was  favorable,  and  "Othello"  has  had  a 
place  in  Mantell's  repertoire  ever  since.  It 
is  the  veteran  play  of  his  present  extensive 
list  of  classics. 

Mantell's  last  act  of  "Othello,"  matured 
by  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  of 
frequent  playing,  has  become,  in  my  opinion, 
the  finest  piece  of  stage  artistry  he  or  any 
other  actor  of  his  generation  has  exhibited. 
When  I  saw  it  the  first  time,  I  was  dazed 
by  its  matchless  power  and  beauty.  In 
reviewing  the  performance  for  a  newspaper 
the  next  morning,  I  wrote  some  paragraphs 
which  pleased  the  tragedian  and  which 
served  as  my  letter  of  introduction  to  him. 
From  this  introduction  came  the  friendship 


120     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

that  finally  led   to   my   undertaking   this 
biography. 

Here  are  the  paragraphs,  which  were 
used  for  a  time  over  the  United  States  and 
Canada  as  the  "official"  estimate  of  his 
acting  in  this  role: 

"What  pitiful  weaklings  these  modern 
writers  of  tragedy  be!  That  was  the  moral 
in  the  swish  of  the  final  curtain  on  *  Othello ' 
last  evening.  The  play  was  over,  but  the 
big  audience  sat  dumb.  Then  there  came  a 
tumultuous  burst  of  applause,  and  only 
then  did  that  audience  realize  it  was  time 
to  go  home. 

"They  don't  write  final  acts  like  that 
any  more.  A  few  atoms  of  dust  lying  be- 
neath the  picturesque  little  church  at 
Stratford  on  the  Avon  is  all  that  is  left  of 
the  last  brain  capable  of  conceiving  and 
executing  so  powerful  a  horror  so  mightily. 
Across  the  centuries  the  shadow  of  the 
Elizabethan  demigod  fell,  and  men  and 
women,  brooding  in  that  shadow,  forgot  all 
save  the  wretchedness  wrought  by  the 
jealousy  of  the  Moor  of  Venice,  fanned  into 
a  devouring  flame  by  a  monstrously  false 
friend. 

"Technicians  may  argue  learnedly  and 
convincingly  about  the  bad  art  of  the 
soliloquy,  about  the  artificiality  of  blank 
verse,  but  their  arguments  crumble  to 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     121 

ashes  in  the  fires  of  the  genius  of  Shakespeare 
in  the  final  scene  of  this  great  tragedy. 
Othello  soliloquizing  is  a  giant  among  the 
pigmy  creations  of  modern  technique,  and 
blank  verse  is  only  the  great  voice  of  great 
emotions. 

"Mr.  Mantell  was  truly  Shakespearean  in 
this  tremendous  act.  His  powerful  voice 
rolled  through  the  long  gamut  of  passions 
with  the  thunder  of  Shakespeare's  poetry, 
and  his  frame  shook  with  the  terror  of  the 
mighty  deed  of  punishment  inflicted  on  the 
supposedly  faithless  Desdemona. 

"A  deadly  stillness  hung  over  the  audi- 
ence during  the  long  soliloquy  preceding 
the  act  of  sacrifice,  in  which  he  laid  bare  his 
soul  and  justified  the  approaching  deed  in 
the  light  of  his  understanding.  Then  when 
Desdemona  awoke  and  greeted  her  lord 
with  childish  innocence  and  playfulness, 
stifled  sobs  were  heard  —  and  Shakespeare 
dead  these  three  hundred  years,  and 
'Othello*  a  victim  of  the  life-sapping 
commentators ! 

"Then  Othello  warned  Desdemona  with 
infinite  sorrow  —  infinite  because  pityingly 
stern  —  and  eyes  unaccustomed  to  tears 
became  wet.  And  then  he  strangled  her, 
and  the  horror  of  it  burned,  and  burned, 
and  burned. 

"Mr.  Mantell  had  achieved  another  tri- 


122     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

mnph.  He  had  risen  superior  to  the  blight 
of  sophistication,  and  had  made  the  passions 
of  Shakespeare  live." 

A  number  of  amusing  incidents  have 
enlivened  the  quarter  of  a  century  of  Mr. 
MantelTs  presentation  of  "Othello"  on  the 
stage. 

Once  in  Toronto,  after  a  performance  of 
the  play,  the  tragedian  was  the  guest  of 
honor,  at  a  fashionable  reception.  There  he 
met  a  very  appreciative  young  woman  of 
the  gushing  type. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Mantell,"  she  broke  out  imme- 
diately, after  the  introduction,  "I  just  dote 
on  your  Othello !  I  think  it  so  thrilling  and 
so  artistic!  You  strike  me  as  being  so 
wonderfully  conscientious,  too!" 

"Yes,  Madame,"  replied  the  tragedian, 
gravely,  and  with  his  most  courtly  bow, 
"I  try  to  do  everything  thoroughly.  I  am 
so  sincere  in  Othello  that  I  do  not  stop  with 
staining  my  face  and  hands  and  arms,  but 
I  blacken  my  whole  body." 

"Oh,  Mr.  Mantell!"  cried  the  sweet 
young  thing,  with  a  flutter  of  alarm,  "I 
hope  you  didn't  catch  cold  on  your  way 
over  here.  For  you  must  have  taken  a 
bath  before  you  left  the  theatre!" 

Another  night  in  Ottawa,  the  magnifi- 
cently tense  last  scene  of  "Othello"  was 
on.  Charlotte  Behrens  (the  second  Mrs. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     123 

Mantell)  was  the  Desdemona.  A  "super" 
behind  the  scenes  became  interested.  He 
edged  farther  and  farther  out  of  the  wings 
at  the  rear  of  the  stage,  until  he  came  half 
in  view  of  the  audience  behind  the  bed  of 
Desdemona. 

"Get  back!"  whispered  the  girl  wife 
about  to  be  strangled. 

The  "super"  didn't  move  —  he  didn't 
realize  the  whisper  was  addressed  to  him. 

Then  Othello  tried  it. 

"By  heaven,"  he  said  to  Desdemona,  "I 
saw  my  handkerchief  in's  hand."  -Then, 
in  a  menacing  whisper  to  the  "super": 
"You  cursed  idiot,  get  off!" 

Still  no  result. 

"O  perjur'd  woman!"  -Then,  "Back, 
you  blankety-blank  fool ! ' 

"Thou  dost  stone  my  heart"  — "I  tell 
you,  get  back!" 

"And  make'st  me  call  what  I  intend  to  do 
a  murder!" 

He  was  edging  toward  the  "super,"  and 
he  whispered  to  Desdemona,  who  was  now 
giggling  to  herself  in  spite  of  her  impending 
doom:  "And,  believe  me,  it  will  be  a 
murder!" 

"Which  I  thought  a  sacrifice,"  continued 
Othello,  getting  closer  and  closer  to  his 
prey. 

"I   saw   the   handerchief!"   he   shouted 


124     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

ferociously  at  Desdemona,  punctuating  his 
elocution  with  a  swift  kick,  delivered  behind 
the  bed,  so  the  audience  couldn't  see  it. 

The  absorbed,  bulging-eyed  "super"  gave 
one  wild  yelp  of  terror,  and  sprang  like  a 
hound  for  the  stage  door,  through  which  he 
disappeared,  costume  and  all. 

Two  years  later,  Mr.  Mantell,  on  his 
return  to  Ottawa,  asked  the  "  super  captain" 
about  him. 

"Guess  he's  still  running,  governor," 
answered  that  official. 

During  an  engagement  in  Portland, 
Maine,  Harry  Keefer,  who  has  been  Mr. 
Mantell's  stage  manager  from  time  im- 
memorial, and  who  knows  every  streak  of 
paint  on  every  shred  of  scenery  of  all  the 
productions,  was  sent  on  to  New  York  to 
make  arrangements  for  the  opening  of  a 
hurriedly  booked  engagement  at  the  Forty- 
Fourth  Street  Theatre. 

In  a  tense  moment  of  "Othello,"  the 
sounding  of  a  gong  creates  on  the  audience 
a  profound  impression.  So  important  is  it 
that  this  gong  sound  at  exactly  the  right 
second,  that  Mr.  Keefer  always  stands 
beside  the  big  suspended  brass  bell  that 
once  belonged  to  the  elder  Salvini,  and 
personally  superintends  the  striking  of  it. 

Before  leaving  for  New  York,  Keefer  had 
cautioned  his  "under-study"  particularly 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     125 

about  this  effect.  Every  one  on  the  stage 
knew  about  it,  and  Mr.  Mantell  himself 
made  it  his  business  before  going  on  for  the 
scene  to  see  that  the  assistant  stage  man- 
ager was  in  place  and  ready. 

Every  one  off  the  scene  congregated 
about  the  bell  to  see  that  nothing  went 
wrong.  The  young  man  holding  the  muffled 
hammer  naturally  felt  a  little  nervous. 
The  critical  moment  came.  The  young  man 
struck  —  and  missed  the  bell  by  an  inch! 
Before  he  could  recover,  the  "cue"  was 
passed,  and  the  audience  didn't  get  its 
thrill  —  but  Mr.  Mantell  did! 

Though  " Othello"  had  succeeded  at  the 
first  performance  in  Reading,  Mantell  and 
Pitou  knew  that  a  repertoire  made  up 
exclusively  of  the  classics  would  not  then 
be  profitable  in  the  hands  of  the  young 
romantic  actor. 

Accordingly,  they  secured  the  rights  to 
"The  Corsican  Brothers,"  which  had  just 
been  made  from  Dumas'  sensational  novel. 
The  premiere  occurred  in  Philadelphia. 
The  receipts  for  the  week  reached  what  was 
then  an  enormous  total,  and  what  is  still 
good  business,  in  spite  of  myths  about  con- 
tinuous fifteen  and  eighteen-thousand-dollar 
weeks,  $7,677.53.  This  was  the  largest 
business  to  which  Mantell  had  yet  played, 
and  was  the  largest  for  some  years  to  come. 


126     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

He  and  Pitou  were  jubilant.  In  bold  script 
opposite  the  entry  in  Mr.  Mantell's  book  of 
finance  for  that  season  appears  this  note: 
"All  debts  paid." 

"The  Corsican  Brothers"  proved  a  win- 
ning feature  for  two  seasons,  during  which 
performances  of  "Othello"  and  "Mon- 
bars"  were  also  given.  Then  Mantell  be- 
came restless  again  to  try  his  fortune  with 
the  classics,  and  chose,  of  all  plays,  "Ham- 
let," in  which  Edwin  Booth  was  then 
supreme. 

Troy,  New  York,  was  the  scene  of  the 
experiment,  and  there  on  the  night  of 
March  19,  1890,  Mantell  played  the  Dane 
for  the  first  time  on  any  stage.  Finan- 
cially, the  performance  wras  not  encourag- 
ing, but  the  little  audience  displayed  so 
much  enthusiasm  that  Mantell  decided  to 
keep  "Hamlet"  in  his  repertoire  beside 
"Othello,"  instead  of  discarding  it  as  he 
had  done  "Romeo  and  Juliet." 

"Hamlet,"  like  "Othello,"  has  never 
since  been  absent  from  the  list  of  plays  he 
is  prepared  constantly  to  give.  He  has 
presented  this  drama  more  times  than  any 
other,  varying  his  interpretation  from  time 
to  time  as  new  light  has  broken  in  upon 
him  as  to  the  character  of  the  most  elusive 
personage  Shakespeare  has  drawn. 

"No  one  is  competent  to  play  Hamlet 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     127 

until  he  is  fifty,"  Mr.  Mantell  told  me  dur- 
ing the  course  of  the  first  newspaper  inter- 
view I  ever  had  with  him,  "and  then  he  is 
too  old  for  the  part." 

The  statement  is,  in  a  way,  an  answer  to 
a  certain  amount  of  adverse  criticism  that 
has  been  offered  in  late  years  in  the  contro- 
versy over  the  artistic  value  of  his  mature 
Hamlet.  Few  have  questioned  the  exquisite 
music  of  his  reading  of  the  lines.  Practically 
all  of  the  adverse  critics  have  set  forth  the 
objection  that  he  is  too  robust  and  athletic 
for  the  part.  The  objection,  even  if  just,  is 
comparatively  trivial,  since  the  beauty  of  a 
play  so  frankly  philosophical  as  "Hamlet" 
lies  more  in  the  beauty  of  elocution  than 
in  external  realism  so  much  in  vogue  in  this 
period  of  theatrical  history. 

Even  Mr.  Mantell  may  not  be  quite  right 
in  his  assumption  that  the  freshness  of 
youth  is  essential  to  Hamlet.  Hamlet  is 
a  philosophical  puzzle  rather  than  a  flesh- 
and-blood  personage.  He  is  young  in  years, 
but  hoary  headed  in  philosophy  —  young 
as  Romeo  in  romance,  but  old  as  Lear  in 
suffering. 

In  the  course  of  three  centuries,  no  two 
persons  have  been  found  to  agree  precisely 
on  any  point  regarding  the  Dane.  Shake- 
speare himself  probably  didn't  know  exactly 
what  he  was  doing  when  he  wrote  the  play, 


128     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

any  more  than  Coleridge  realized  the  trend 
of  his  genius  when  he  dreamed  "Kubla 
Kahn"  or  Poe  when  he  feverishly  dashed 
off  "Ulalume." 

"Hamlet"  is  the  only  play  in  Mr.  Man- 
tell's  present  classic  repertoire  in  which  his 
supremacy  on  the  contemporary  American 
stage  is  questioned  by  critics  competent 
to  judge.  Othello,  Macbeth,  Brutus,  Shy- 
lock  and  Richelieu  are  his  in  the  face  of 
more  or  less  formidable  opposition.  King 
Lear,  Richard  III  and  Louis  XI  are  his  by 
the  power  of  a  genius  that  has  excluded 
competition. 

But  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  book  to 
become  critical.  It  is  my  task,  rather,  to 
relate  events,  and  so  I  pass  on  to  an  anec- 
dote of  "  Hamlet "  in  the  days  when  the  Dane 
was  a  mere  child  in  Mantell's  repertoire. 

The  great  Booth  had  just  died.  Every 
actor  on  the  American  stage  doing  classic 
roles  was  trying  to  qualify  as  his  successor 
in  "Hamlet."  Mantell  was  billed  for  his 
first  performance  in  Kansas  City  as  the 
Dane.  It  would  be  a  tremendous  triumph 
if  he  should  be  chosen  by  critics  in  a  city 
of  such  consequence  as  the  actor  upon 
whose  shoulders  had  fallen  the  mantle  of 
Booth.  Thus  he  mused  as  he  sat  in  his 
room  at  the  Coates  House,  looking  across 
at  the  theatre  where  he  was  to  play. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     129 

It  was  about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening. 
A  crowd  began  collecting  in  front  of  the 
theatre.  It  got  larger  and  larger.  Mantell 
grew  excited.  The  crowd  continued  to  in- 
crease, and  became  noisier  and  noisier  and 
more  and  more  enthusiastic.  Mantell 
couldn't  stand  it  any  longer.  He  decided 
to  go  over  to  his  dressing  room  early  and 
make  up  with  special  care. 

As  he  passed  through  the  crowd,  he  heard 
three  or  four  people  say  to  each  other, 
"There  goes  Mantell!"  The  words  were 
delicious  music  to  his  ears.  His  own  ex- 
citement exaggerated  the  excitement  of  the 
voices.  "There  goes  Mantell!  !  —  It's  Man- 
tell!  !!— The  Great  Mantell!  !  !  !"  was 
what  the  voices  seemed  to  say.  Instead  of 
coming  from  the  lips  of  three  or  four,  it 
sounded  to  him  as  if  the  entire  crowd  was 
taking  up  the  cry.  He  opened  the  stage 
door  and  passed  in,  hanging  his  head 
modestly.  His  heart  was  swelling  to  burst- 
ing with  pride. 

He  told  Charley,  his  valet,  to  dress  him 
with  extra  care  tonight  —  "For  it's  to  be  a 
big  night  —  a  night  of  triumph ! "  He  heard 
the  crowd  outside  clamoring  and  cheering. 
Then  a  band  began  to  play,  "Hail  to  the 
Chief"  and  "The  Conquering  Hero  Comes." 
He  was  intoxicated  with  the  delight  of  it. 

He  sent  to  the  front  of  the  house  for  Mart 


130     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Hanley  —  "  Genial  Mart "  —  his  manager 
and  partner. 

"Mart,"  he  said  in  a  tone  of  authority  he 
was  not  in  the  habit  of  using  to  his  financial 
backer,  "I  want  you  to  throw  open  the 
gallery  doors  right  now." 

"All  right,  governor,"  said  Hanley,  dully 
and  without  interest. 

"What's  the  matter,  man?"  asked  Man- 
tell,  sharply.  "  Can't  you  see  we're  going  to 
have  a  big  house?" 

"Yes,  a  big  house,"  answered  Hanley, 
with  a  special  emphasis  on  the  word 
"house,"  that  only  a  little  relieved  the 
weariness  of  his  tone. 

The  crowd  in  front  of  the  theatre  broke 
into  a  wild  cheer. 

"Come  out  of  it,  Mart!"  cried  Mantell, 
springing  toward  him  excitedly  and  grasp- 
ing both  shoulders.  "Listen  to  that!  I  tell 
you  our  fortune's  made!" 

Hanley  "came  out  of  it"  with  a  ven- 
geance. 

"That  crowd!"  he  roared,  disgustedly. 
"Why,  you  big  chump  —  don't  you  know 
McKinley's  in  town!  That's  what  the 
crowd's  yelling  about!  He's  going  to  speak 
from  the  balcony  of  the  Coates  House." 

Puncture  —  collapse! 

The  receipts  that  night  were  sixteen 
dollars.  Nobody  in  Kansas  City  knew  next 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     131 

morning  whether  Booth's  successor  had 
been  found  or  not.  There  hadn't  been  a 
newspaper  critic  in  the  house. 

Pardon  me,  gentle  reader,  while  I  indulge 
here  in  a  melancholy  prophecy  regarding 
my  veracity  as  a  biographer.  Three  hun- 
dred years  hence  —  the  longest  limit  mod- 
esty will  permit  my  assigning  to  the  survival 
of  this  record  —  some  antiquarian  perchance 
will  pick  up  this  volume  and  read  the  fore- 
going anecdote.  The  cleverness  of  the  co- 
incidence at  the  base  of  it  will  arouse  his 
suspicions.  He  will  diligently  search  all 
existing  records,  political  and  theatrical, 
taking  no  account  of  any  that  perchance 
have  been  lost,  and  then  will  announce 
triumphantly  that  the  story  is  a  fabrication 
-  that  William  McKinley  and  Robert 
Mantell  were  never  in  Kansas  City  at  the 
same  tune.  He  will  denounce  me,  and  assert 
contemptuously  that  I  am  wholly  unworthy 
of  credence  as  a  biographer.  I  shall  then, 
alas,  be  relegated  to  a  place  among  such 
disreputable  fakers  as  Moses,  Herodotus, 
Plutarch  and  Tacitus,  for  whose  most  inter- 
esting narratives  no  confirmatory  records 
in  carved  stone  have  been  found.  And  the 
fiendish  antiquarian  will  gloat  over  his 
triumph  as  do  the  learned  delvers  in  the 
past  of  our  own  day.  The  thought  so  sad- 
dens me  that  I  shall  proceed  to  a  more 


132     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

melancholy   anecdote   of   "Hamlet"   than 
the  one  just  related. 

It  was  during  his  duel  with  Laertes  that 
Mantell  one  night  was  the  victim  of  an 
accident  that  came  near  closing  his  career 
forever.  The  foil  flew  from  the  hand  of  his 
adversary  and  struck  him  a  violent  blow 
above  the  eye.  The  blood  blinded  him,  and 
Mantell  thought  the  blade  must  have 
passed  through  his  eye  and  into  his  skull. 
However,  as  the  play  was  only  a  few  mo- 
ments from  the  end,  he  finished  it,  amid  the 
"Ohs"  and  "Ahs"  from  the  audience,  who 
detected  something  beyond  stage  realism  in 
the  outcome  of  the  duel. 

As  he  lay  on  the  stage  those  last  few 
moments,  it  was  sickening  to  him  to  think 
his  career  ended  by  the  loss  of  an  eye.  As 
soon  as  the  curtain  went  down,  he  sprang 
up  and  rushed  to  his  dressing  room.  A 
physician  who  happened  to  be  in  the  audi- 
ence had  gone  back  stage  to  offer  his 
services. 

But  Mantell  made  everybody  stand  out- 
side the  dressing  room.  After  the  first  dash 
of  cold  water  into  his  face,  he  shut  the  eye 
that  had  been  unconcerned  in  the  accident, 
and  looked  up.  He  could  see  as  well  as  ever. 

"Get  away!"  he  bellowed,  cheerfully, 
"all  of  you,  confound  you!"  and  he  rushed 
out  and  chased  everybody  from  his  door 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     133 

in  sheer  delight.    "This  is  no  place  yet  for 
vultures  and  buzzards!" 

With  "The  Corsican  Brothers"  and 
"Monbars"  still  good  drawing  cards  in 
the  romantic  field,  and  "Othello"  and 
"Hamlet"  dependable  classics,  Mantell  be- 
lieved himself  strong  enough  to  venture  on 
a  tour  on  his  own  account,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  English  actor-managers,  and  pocket 
all  the  profits  instead  of  dividing  with  a 
partner.  Accordingly,  in  the  autumn  of 
1891,  he  severed  his  connection  with  Pitou. 

Early  in  the  season  he  strengthened  his 
repertoire  with  a  new  play,  "The  Louisi- 
anian,"  which  proved  moderately  success- 
ful. The  premiere,  after  a  brief  try-out  in 
smaller  towns,  was  announced  for  St. 
Louis,  November  6. 

On  this  night,  Mantell  took  the  "longest 
chance"  he  has  ever  taken  in  his  entire 
career,  and  the  thrills  back  on  the  stage 
were  much  more  electric  than  any  he  could 
communicate  to  the  audience. 

The  opening  was  scheduled  for  a  Friday 
night.  On  the  preceding  Tuesday,  the  two 
leading  feminine  members  of  his  company, 
which  was  presenting  repertoire,  fell  ill 
simultaneously.  The  ingenue,  Jessie  Bus- 
ley,  who  since  has  become  famous,  was  all 
that  was  left,  and  she,  though  then  inex- 
perienced, undertook  Desdemona  and 


134     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Ophelia,  and  came  off  with  very  creditable 
performances.  But  for  "The  Louisianian" 
the  full  strength  of  the  company  was 
needed.  On  Wednesday  it  became  apparent 
that  neither  of  the  actresses  who  had  become 
ill  so  inopportunely  would  be  able  to  ap- 
pear. Miss  Busley  began  the  study  of  one 
of  the  roles.  Mantell  wired  to  New  York 
for  a  Miss  Landor  who  had  played  the  other 
part  in  a  try-out.  He  had  difficulty  in 
locating  her,  but  finally  succeeded,  and  on 
Thursday  morning  she  started  for  St. 
Louis. 

The  railroads  had  not  yet  put  on  the 
wind-cutting  trains  that  since  have  con- 
verted St.  Louis  into  a  suburb  of  New  York, 
or  vice-versa,  according  to  the  individual 
prejudice  of  the  reader.  Miss  Landor  was 
scheduled  in  the  time  tables  to  arrive  about 
two  hours  before  time  for  the  curtain  to  go 
up.  Somewhere  along  the  route  she  wired 
that  the  train  had  been  delayed  for  three 
hours.  From  time  to  time  after  that  she 
had  the  presence  of  mind  to  send  tele- 
grams telling  of  her  progress,  which  was 
satisfactory,  with  the  exception  of  the  one 
delay. 

Mantell  at  eight  o'clock  decided  to  take 
his  chance.  The  house  was  sold  out  and 
he  hated  to  give  all  that  money  back,  espe- 
cially as  the  profits  now  were  all  coming  to 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE      135 

himself.  He  sent  his  stage  manager  to  the 
train  with  a  carriage  to  meet  Miss  Landor 
and  rush  her  to  the  theatre. 

He  ordered  the  curtain  rung  up  on  a 
one-act  play,  "  A  Lesson  in  Acting. "  While 
the  playlet  was  in  progress,  Mantell  kept 
one  ear  turned  anxiously  to  the  stage  door, 
but  the  curtain  went  down  without  any- 
thing unusual  happening  back  there. 

But,  just  as  Mantell  had  responded  to 
his  last  curtain  call,  the  door  flew  open,  and 
in  rushed  Miss  Landor,  all  dressed  and 
made  up  for  the  part.  She  had  converted  a 
stateroom  in  the  train  into  a  dressing  room. 

" Can  we  have  a  few  minutes'  rehearsal? " 
she  asked  Mr.  Mantell. 

"No,  you  go  anywhere  in  the  scene  you 
choose  —  I'll  find  you,"  answered  the  star, 
a  great  load  off  his  mind. 

The  curtain  went  up,  and  in  the  entire 
career  of  "The  Louisianian"  there  was  not 
given  a  better  performance. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  second  act,  the 
stage  manager,  whom  everybody  had  for- 
gotten, rushed  into  the  dressing  room  of 
the  star. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Mantell,"  he  cried  in  nervous 
excitement,  "the  train  is  in,  and  Miss 
Landor  wasn't  on  it!" 

"Get  out,  you  bloomin'  fool,"  shouted 
star,  "she's  been  on  and  played  two  acts!" 


136     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Another  new  production  of  this  season 
was  " Parrhasius,"  first  used  as  a  "curtain- 
raiser."  It  proved  so  successful  as  a  one-act 
play  that  Mr.  Mantell  had  it  expanded,  but 
in  the  form  of  a  full-length  drama  it  proved 
disappointing. 

Difficulty  in  securing  desirable  bookings, 
and  numerous  aggravations  that  distracted 
his  mind  from  his  stage  work  led  Mantell 
at  the  close  of  this  season  to  give  up  the 
experiment  of  managing  himself.  From 
Proctor  &  Turner  he  secured  a  contract 
agreeable  in  its  provisions,  and  on  August 
22,  1892,  he  opened  under  their  manage- 
ment in  Buffalo,  in  a  new  play,  "The  Face 
in  the  Moonlight,"  which  seemed  destined 
to  become  almost  as  popular  as  "Monbars" 
and  "TheCorsican  Brothers."  On  Septem- 
ber 5,  Proctor  &  Turner  brought  their  new 
star  to  Proctor's  Twenty-Third  Street 
Theatre,  New  York,  in  his  new  play. 
There  it  enjoyed  a  profitable  run  of  six 
weeks. 

Little  did  Mantell  know  when  he  started 
on  the  road  at  the  conclusion  of  this  engage- 
ment that  New  York  would  be  closed  to 
him  now  for  more  than  a  decade. 

Up  to  this  time  he  had  prospered.  His 
tremendous  success  on  the  opening  night 
of  "Fedora"  nine  years  before  had  made 
him  instantly  the  leading  romantic  actor 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     137 

on  the  American  stage.  He  had  enjoyed 
that  distinction  ever  since.  It  had  been 
found  he  was  not  an  actor  of  a  single  role. 
Robert  Mantell  had  not  died  wim  Loris 
Ipanoff.  He  had  won  enviable  success  in 
"Tangled  Lives"  and  "The  Marble  Heart," 
and  he  had  made  "Monbars"  and  "The 
Corsican  Brothers"  famous  from  coast  to 
coast  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  — 
famous  with  a  fame,  indeed,  that  survives 
after  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  the  memory  of 
playgoers  with  a  vividness  enjoyed  by  few 
stage  productions.  For  the  play  of  last 
year  is  as  surely  in  the  discard  as  the  news- 
paper of  yesterday. 

He  had  a  new  play,  "The  Face  in  the 
Moonlight,"  which  gave  promise  of  dupli- 
cating the  successes  of  his  old.  He  had 
already  given  splendid  promise  in  "Othello" 
and  "Hamlet"  of  a  brilliant  future  as  a 
classic  star.  He  was  prospering  financially 
as  few  male  stars,  unsupported  by  female 
co-stars,  prosper  in  America.  The  leader- 
ship of  the  stage  was  in  his  grasp.  Appar- 
ently he  had  only  to  stretch  out  his  hand 
and  clutch  it. 

Then  it  was  that  a  malicious  fate  stepped 
in.  Robert  Mantell  was  banished  from  the 
stage  of  New  York  City.  Hereafter,  he  must 
remain  in  the  "provinces."  Without  Goth- 
am's approval,  the  life  of  the  American 


138     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

star  is  hard.  No  matter  how  manfully  he 
struggles,  no  matter  how  artistic  his  per- 
formances, he  cannot  gain  or  maintain  a 
standing  in  the  front  rank  of  his  profession. 
The  stamp  of  New  York  is  like  the  word 
"sterling"  branded  on  silver.  It  does  not 
change  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  article,  but 
it  gives  it  a  market  value  above  suspicion. 

New  York  quickly  forgets  —  more 
quickly  than  the  "provinces."  There  are 
so  many  things  to  distract  the  attention  of 
Broadway.  Mantell,  favorite  matinee  idol, 
was  not  long  gone  before  others  sprang 
up  to  take  his  place.  The  newspapers  and 
the  magazines  welcomed  them,  and  Broad- 
way worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  the  new 
demigods. 

Mantell  saw  and  became  melancholy  — 
disheartened.  Without  the  stimulus  of  New 
York  notoriety,  his  value  as  a  drawing 
card  decreased.  From  a  first-rate  star,  he 
sank  to  the  level  of  the  second-raters.  He 
played  in  the  popular-priced  theatres,  then 
devoted  to  cheap  melodrama  with  only  an 
occasional  "feature"  like  himself  to  lend 
tone  to  the  season. 

Even  here  he  did  not  succeed  financially. 
Five  years  after  New  York  closed  her  doors 
to  him  he  finished  a  season  with  ten  dollars 
in  his  pocket  and  ten  thousand  dollars  worth 
of  debts  accumulated  against  him. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     139 

He  lost  ambition.  He  allowed  his  com- 
pany and  his  productions  to  sink  in  stand- 
ard. The  only  thing  left  him  was  a  blind 
bulldog  instinct  to  act  —  to  do  his  level 
best  when  odds  were  greatest.  This  in- 
stinct proved  his  salvation  when  New  York 
again  was  opened  to  him.  Then  it  happened 
that  the  rugged  "barnstormer"  astounded 
blase  Broadway. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Exile 

THE  cause  of  Robert  Mantell's  long 
exile  from  New  York  was  age-old 
—  only  a  few  days  younger  than 
Adam  —  "the  woman.'*  Mantell 
and  Marie  Sheldon  discovered  soon  after 
they  were  married  that  they  differed  in 
tastes,  ideas,  ideals  and  tempers.  But  they 
made  the  best  of  what  both  came  to  regard 
as  a  bad  bargain.  For  a  long  time  they  lived 
amicably  so  far  as  the  outside  world  knew 
or  cared.  Two  sons  were  born,  Robert 
Shand  Mantell  and  Jack  Parcher  Mantell. 
Robert  has  become  a  successful  business 
man  in  Detroit,  and  Jack,  also  successful 
in  business,  has  won  added  distinction  in 
New  York  as  an  athlete. 

Rumors  of  domestic  difficulties  began  to 
drift  to  the  world  outside.  As  Mantell  was 
a  popular  stage  hero,  the  ears  of  Dame 
Gossip  were  pricked  up.  The  rumors  were 
well  grounded,  though,  quite  naturally, 
exaggerated.  There  were  domestic  difficul- 
ties —  serious  difficulties.  The  climax  came 
in  Cincinnati.  There  was  a  quarrel.  Man- 
tell  packed  his  belongings  and  left  the 

140 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     141 

hotel.  Mrs.  Mantell  went  back  to  New 
York.  She  sued  for  divorce.  Her  suit  was 
granted,  and  with  it  alimony  to  the  amount 
of  one  hundred  dollars  a  week. 

It  was  the  alimony  that  checked  MantelTs 
stage  career.  At  first  he  paid  it.  Then,  he 
struck  a  streak  of  bad  business  and  got 
behind.  One  hundred  dollars  a  week  is  a 
lot  of  money  when  you  stop  to  think  about 
it.  In  a  few  weeks  the  back  alimony  piled 
up  formidably.  Mantell  consulted  his  law- 
yers. He  was  advised  not  to  pay  it.  He 
followed  the  advice.  There  was  a  complaint. 
Mantell  was  adjudged  in  contempt  of 
court.  A  warrant  was  issued  for  his  arrest, 
to  be  served  any  time  he  should  cross  the 
border  into  the  State  of  New  York.  Sunday 
was  excepted.  Some  amusing  and  some 
tragic  incidents  resulted  from  MantelFs 
successful  evasions  of  the  sheriff. 

Not  a  great  while  after  the  divorce,  Mr. 
Mantell  married  Charlotte  Behrens,  a  mem- 
ber of  his  company,  whom  he  made  his 
leading  woman.  To  Mantell  and  the  second 
Mrs.  Mantell  was  born  on  December  29, 
1895,  a  daughter,  Ethel  Mantell,  who,  at 
the  age  of  seventeen,  followed  her  father  to 
the  stage. 

Shortly  after  the  beginning  of  his  ali- 
mony troubles,  Mantell  had  a  legal  quarrel 
with  his  new  managers,  Proctor  &  Turner, 


142     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

which  resulted  in  the  cancelling  of  the  con- 
tract between  them  in  the  spring  of  1894. 
Mantell  summered  that  year  in  Stamford, 
Connecticut  as  near  as  he  dared  approach 
the  forbidden  land. 

The  following  season,  Mantell  toured 
again  under  the  management  of  his  former 
partner,  Augustus  Pitou,  using  his  old 
plays,  "The  Corsican  Brothers,"  "Mon- 
bars,"  "Othello"  and  "Hamlet."  Since  the 
beginning  of  his  troubles  he  had  not  had 
the  heart  to  produce  anything  new.  But, 
on  Washington's  birthday,  in  Richmond, 
Va.,  he  and  Pitou  made  a  venture.  Their 
play,  "The  Husband,"  was  tame  and  un- 
eventful. The  season  was  not  a  success 
financially,  and  at  its  close,  Pitou  withdrew 
from  the  partnership,  and  Mantell  was  left 
to  shift  for  himself.  Already  the  banishment 
from  New  York  was  beginning  to  tell. 

Again,  Mantell  and  his  new  wife  sum- 
mered at  Stamford.  The  prospect  was 
gloomy  enough.  Business  had  been  bad, 
and  the  coming  season  promised  nothing 
better.  The  Cleveland  panic  was  not  yet 
over.  The  politicians  were  wildly  excited 
themselves  and  were  exciting  the  country 
over  "sound"  and  "unsound"  money. 
The  Hawaiian  situation  was  still  delicate, 
and  the  dispute  with  Great  Britain  over 
Venezuela  was  at  an  acute  stage.  Mantell 


MISS  KTI1KL  MANTKLL 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     143 

was  facing  a  new  season  on  his  own  re- 
sponsibility. 

But  this  summer  of  1895  was  signalized 
by  an  event  of  first  importance  to  Mr.  Man- 
telTs  future,  though  of  little  apparent 
consequence  at  the  time  —  his  first  meeting 
with  William  A.  Brady,  under  whose  expert 
direction  he  was  destined  to  rise  to  the 
pinnacle  of  fame  and  affluence. 

Brady,  who  began  his  money-making 
career  as  a  promoter  of  prize  fights,  his 
ablest  star  in  those  days  being  James  J. 
Corbett,  was  now  becoming  one  of  the  im- 
portant factors  in  American  theatricals. 
He  was  in  the  transition  period.  A  per- 
formance, therefore,  of  "As  You  Like  It," 
with  "Billy"  Muldoon,  the  most  popular 
wrestler  of  the  day  as  Charles,  could  not 
fail  to  attract  his  notice. 

It  was  an  idea  hatched  by  George  Tyler, 
who  afterwards  became  a  power  in  the 
theatrical  world  as  the  animating  spirit  of 
Leibler  &  Co.  The  performance  was  to  be 
given  in  the  open  air  at  Asbury  Park,  New 
Jersey,  where  Brady  had  his  summer  home. 

Mantell  was  chosen  by  Tyler  for  Or- 
lando, with  a  promise  of  three  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  for  the  performance.  It  looked 
like  a  godsend  to  the  actor  at  this  moment. 
Tyler  sent  him  fifty  dollars  to  bind  the 
bargain. 


144     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

The  performance  was  to  be  given  on  a 
Thursday.  Man  tell  was  not  definitely  en- 
gaged until  the  Monday  before.  There  was 
no  Sunday,  his  day  of  grace,  between. 
How  was  it  possible  for  him  to  get  from 
Stamford  to  Asbury  Park  without  crossing 
New  York  and  running  the  risk  of  arrest? 

Man  tell  solved  the  problem.  For  twenty- 
five  dollars  he  chartered  a  motor  boat  to 
make  the  trip.  He  started  blithely  down 
the  Sound.  All  went  well  until  he  got  under 
Brooklyn  Bridge.  Then  the  motor  snapped 
and  fluttered.  The  boat  lost  its  balance  and 
began  to  dip  water.  The  man  at  the  motor, 
which  was  still  spinning  feebly,  tried  to 
round  the  point  and  make  for  the  Jersey 
shore.  But  the  boat  was  filling  too  rapidly. 
He  was  forced  to  steer  for  the  New  York 
wharves.  He  and  Mantell  took  off  their 
shoes,  preparing  to  swim  if  necessary. 
Mantell,  as  a  further  precaution,  took  the 
remaining  twenty-five  dollars  he  had  re- 
ceived from  Tyler  out  of  his  pocket,  and 
stowed  it,  in  defiance  of  germs,  in  his 
cheek. 

They  got  to  the  shore  none  too  soon,  as 
the  boat  was  filling  rapidly.  Their  trousers 
were  wringing  wet.  Everybody  on  the 
wharf  looked  to  Mantell  like  a  deputy  sher- 
iff. A  ferry  boat  for  Jersey  City  was  just 
ready  to  pull  off.  Mantell  ran  aboard. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     145 

Five  minutes  later  he  was  safe  from  all  the 
sheriffs  of  the  Empire  State. 

Mantell  went  on  to  Asbury  Park,  where 
he  met  Muldoon  for  the  first  time.  He  and 
the  wrestler,  both  men  of  heroic  physique, 
and  both  lovers  of  physical  sport,  soon 
became  good  friends.  They  rehearsed  the 
wrestling  scene  in  a  large  room  in  their 
hotel,  and  worked  it  down  to  the  liveliest 
battle,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  the 
Shakespearean  comedy. 

The  other  guests  at  the  hotel  were  very 
curious  about  the  two  celebrities,  and  were 
continually  peering  about  in  hope  of  seeing 
them  rehearse.  On  the  afternoon  before  the 
performance,  Muldoon  proposed  to  "put 
up  a  job  "  on  them.  Mantell  agreed. 

They  went  into  the  room  they  used  for 
rehearsing  and  locked  the  door.  Then  they 
began  wrestling,  making  as  much  noise  as 
possible,  banging  the  furniture  about  and 
falling  heavily  to  the  floor.  The  bell  boys, 
waiters  and  guests  flocked  to  the  door  and 
assembled  outside.  The  racket  within  be- 
came terrific.  There  was  a  particularly 
heavy  fall,  and  a  moment's  silence. 

Then  the  listeners  heard  Muldoon  cry 
out:  "For  heaven's   sake,   Mantell,   don't 
kill  me;  I  give  up;  you're  choking  me- 
you're  cutting  off  my  — ,"  and  the  rest  was 
lost   in   a   painful   gurgle,   which   became 


146     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

weaker  and  weaker,  and  tapered  off  into  a 
sound  like  a  death  rattle.  One  of  the  bell 
boys,  in  alarm,  ran  for  the  proprietor,  who 
quickly  came  to  the  door. 

"Here,  gentlemen,'*  he  called  out  au- 
thoritatively, "we  can't  have  any  rough 
house!  Open  the  door!" 

Mantell  came  to  the  door,  unlocked  it, 
and  threw  it  wide. 

"Why,  we  were  only  rehearsing,"  he 
said,  but  with  an  admirable  counterfeit  of 
a  guilty  look  on  his  face. 

The  guests  and  bell  boys  and  waiters 
looked  past  him.  They  saw  Muldoon,  ap- 
parently greatly  crestfallen,  rising  from  the 
floor. 

That  evening  as  they  came  into  the 
dining  room,  Mantell  strutted  proudly  in 
front.  Muldoon  followed  with  a  hangdog 
look.  Mantell  was  a  demigod  to  the 
waiters  and  a  hero  to  all  the  guests,  who 
couldn't  keep  from  sending  admiring  glances 
all  through  the  meal  at  the  athlete  who  had 
quelled  the  great  Muldoon. 

That  night,  Mantell  played,  for  the  first 
time  in  America,  the  romantic  Orlando, 
as  whom  he  had  scored  in  England  with 
Marie  De  Grey,  the  gypsy.  Later,  he  added 
the  role  to  his  permanent  repertoire. 

Mr.  Brady  was  in  the  audience  with  his 
wife  and  his  little  daughter,  Alice,  who 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     147 

since  has  become  a  stage  beauty  of  ex- 
traordinary talent.  Mr.  Brady  that  night 
saw  for  the  first  time  his  future  star.  During 
the  course  of  the  evening  the  two  met.  It 
was  scarcely  more  than  a  handshake  at  the 
time,  but  it  paved  the  way  for  a  partner- 
ship profitable  to  both  nearly  a  decade 
later. 

In  September,  Mantell  pluckily  faced  the 
odds  which  nobody  appreciated  more  keenly 
than  he.  "Hamlet"  was  used,  and  "Mon- 
bars,"  and  "The  Corsican  Brothers,"  and 
"Othello"  —  occasionally  even  "The  Hus- 
band." 

"Family  reasons,"  as  our  grandmothers 
discreetly  put  it,  kept  Charlotte  Behrens 
out  of  the  cast  until  after  the  birth  of  her 
daughter  around  the  holiday  times,  increas- 
ing the  expenses  of  her  husband's  company 
by  the  salary  of  a  leading  woman. 

On  March  12,  Mantell  attempted  to  mend 
his  greatly  attenuated  fortunes  by  produc- 
ing a  new  play  of  apparent  promise,  "The 
Queen's  Garter."  But  the  result  before  a 
Cincinnati  audience  was  not  encouraging, 
and  audiences  elsewhere  corroborated  Cin- 
cinnati's opinion.  This  entry  occurs  in  the 
financial  notebook  at  the  close  of  the 
season:  "End  of  a  most  disastrous  tour." 

During  the  summer,  M.  W.  Hanley, 
known  f amilarly  as  "  Genial  Mart,"  entered 


148     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

into  an  agreement  with  the  star  to  assume 
the  management  of  him,  and  on  the  last 
day  of  August,  Mantell  opened  a  new  sea- 
son with  the  old  familiar  repertoire. 

Also,  there  ensued  the  old  familiar  busi- 
ness. It  was  taking  the  heart  out  of  the 
romantic  actor,  rapidly  approaching  middle 
life,  who,  a  dozen  years  before,  had  flashed 
so  brilliantly  upon  New  York,  now  closed 
to  him.  Even  if  he  were  disposed  to  yield 
now  to  the  court's  demand,  a  settlement 
would  have  been  impossible.  The  back 
alimony  had  passed  the  ten-thousand-dollar 
mark.  Mantell  was  lucky  now  when  he 
could  live  comfortably. 

In  March,  Hanley  presented  his  star  in  a 
new  play,  "A  Gentleman  of  Gascony." 
The  premiere  at  Easton,  Pa.,  was  promising. 
Bookings  were  secured  in  Philadelphia  and 
Baltimore.  But  the  exile  wasn't  wanted 
even  in  a  new  romantic  play  attractively 
named.  The  business  of  each  week  hovered 
around  fifteen  hundred  dollars. 

At  the  close  of  the  season,  Mantell  was  all 
but  penniless.  Luckily,  he  secured  an  en- 
gagement to  play  Orlando  and  Othello  at  a 
schoolteachers'  benefit  in  Philadelphia. 
For  these  services  he  received  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars.  This  enabled  him  to 
summer  at  Stamford  in  some  little  comfort. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

Reaching  the  Lowest  Ebb   of  the    Tide   of 
Fortune. 

LOW   as   Robert    Mantell's  fortunes 
had  sunk  —  from  the   affluence  of 
the    darling  of    Broadway    to   the 
poverty  of  the  barnstormer  —  they 
were    destined    to    make    another    plunge 
diametrically  down,  like  a  plummet  of  lead 
in  the  general  disaster  that  now  engulfed 
the  theatrical  world. 

In  a  time  of  public  calamity,  the  theatre 
is  the  first  institution  to  suffer.  The  ordi- 
nary man  or  woman  doesn't  go  to  see  a  play 
when  worried.  It  is  only  the  philosopher 
who  can  bring  his  mind  to  seek  solace  in 
the  theatre. 

In  the  autumn  of  1897,  America  scented 
war  with  Spain.  On  the  night  of  February 
15,  1898,  the  battleship  Maine  was  blown 
up  in  Havana  harbor.  On  April  21,  war 
began  in  earnest.  The  philosophical  minor- 
ity who  could  find  diversion  in  a  theatre 
didn't  make  much  impression  at  the  box 
office. 

But  Mantell  and  "Mart"  Hanley  were 
gamblers.  Though  odds  were  decidedly 

148 


150     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

against  them,  they  produced  at  Stamford 
on  the  night  of  August  30,  1897,  a  new  play 
by  a  Canadian  playwright,  W.  A.  Tre- 
mayne,  entitled  "The  Secret  Warrant." 
Whether  the  play  would  have  been  a  suc- 
cess under  normal  conditions  could  not  be 
determined.  It  held  its  own  on  the  tour 
which  followed,  alongside  "Monbars"  and 
"The  Corsican  Brothers,"  but  the  weekly 
receipts  were  only  from  seven  hundred 
to  nine  hundred  dollars,  scarcely  good 
average  receipts  for  a  first-class  star  on  a 
single  night  when  theatrical  business  is 
healthy.  This  money  was  less  than  half 
of  what  had  been  taken  in  by  Mantell 
and  Hanley  during  the  wretched  season 
preceding. 

Financial  affairs  were  in  this  condition 
when  Mantell's  wife  and  leading  woman, 
Charlotte  Behrens,  fell  fatally  ill  at  Port 
Huron,  Mich.  She  lingered  for  eight  weeks. 
Every  Saturday  night,  Mantell  went  back 
to  her  bedside  from  Montreal,  Toronto, 
Ottawa,  Jersey  City,  and  the  other  towns 
he  was  playing.  Then  she  died.  It  was  in 
mid-week.  Fate  decreed  Mantell  should 
not  be  at  her  death  bed. 

Now  occurred  the  most  pathetic  incident 
that  attended  Mantell's  long  exile  from  New 
York  State.  The  body  was  taken  to  Phila- 
delphia for  burial,  by  way  of  Detroit, 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     151 

Windsor  and  Buffalo.  A  little  funeral  party 
of  relatives  accompanied  it.  Mantell  was 
not  of  their  number.  He  went  the  long  way 
around,  through  Ohio.  The  funeral  train 
had  scarcely  entered  New  York  at  Niagara 
Falls,  when  a  deputy  sheriff  boarded  it  with 
a  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  Robert  Mantell, 
wanted  for  contempt  of  court  through 
failure  to  pay  alimony.  That  was  how  much 
the  law  respected  private  grief. 

As  the  war  clouds  grew  blacker  and 
blacker,  the  box  office  receipts  dwindled  to 
smaller  and  smaller  compass.  Mantell,  who 
was  working  with  Hanley  on  a  salary  and 
percentage  basis,  left  in  his  salary  to  lighten 
expenses,  drawing  only  enough  to  live  on. 
He  and  Hanley  tapped  every  available 
source  of  money  to  pay  salaries  and  running 
expenses,  plunging  deeper  and  deeper  into 
debt,  but  struggling  on,  in  the  hope  that 
luck  would  take  a  turn. 

But  luck  had  no  such  intentions,  and  on 
the  night  of  July  2  —  the  night  before  the 
destruction  of  Cervera's  fleet  in  Santiago 
harbor  —  Mantell  and  Hanley  "surren- 
dered" at  Rockford,  111.  The  night's  gross 
receipts  were  twenty  dollars.  The  terms 
were  fifty  per  cent  for  the  company  and 
fifty  per  cent  for  the  theatre.  Hanley  made 
Mantell  a  present  of  the  ten-dollar  bill 
delivered  to  him  as  the  company's  "share" 


152     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

by  the  treasurer  of  the  theatre.  It  was  all 
the  money  the  star  had  in  the  world.  And 
his  half  of  the  indebtedness,  besides,  was  ten 
thousand  dollars.  The  company  was  paid 
in  full  with  borrowed  money  and  disbanded. 

Mantell  took  his  precious  ten-dollar  bill, 
with  two  or  three  smaller  bills  from  the 
borrowed  fund,  to  the  railroad  station  and 
bought  a  ticket  for  Philadelphia.  He  didn't 
indulge  in  the  luxury  of  a  sleeper,  nor  on 
the  way,  did  "he  patronize  the  dining  and 
cafe  cars.  By  exercising  strict  economy,  he 
reached  Philadelphia  with  fifty  cents  in  his 
pocket.  He  had  not  the  price  of  a  railroad 
ticket  to  Atlantic  City  to  visit  his  little 
daughter,  Ethel,  whom  he  had  placed  there 
with  one  of  her  aunts,  a  sister  of  his  dead 
wife. 

He  indulged  in  some  melancholy  musings 
in  the  Broad  Street  station.  Here  he  was,  a 
theatrical  star  forty-four  years  old,  who, 
fifteen  years  before  as  Loris  Ipanoff  had 
been  hailed  as  the  romantic  actor  pre- 
eminent of  his  day.  He  had  coolly  taken  his 
own  time  then  to  think  over  an  offer  of 
ten  thousand  dollars  a  year.  Success  had 
trodden  on  the  heel  of  success.  He  had  made 
money  easily  and  had  spent  it  joyously. 
Then  had  come  a  sudden  turn  of  affairs. 
He  was  disbarred  from  New  York.  His 
drawing  power  waned.  His  fortunes  ebbed 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE      153 

away.  At  forty -four  he  felt  old.  The  future 
was  dark  —  black.  His  career,  perhaps, 
was  ended. 

In  this  frame  of  mind  he  walked  to  the 
hotel  where  he  had  always  stopped  in 
Philadelphia,  and  whose  proprietor  had 
been  a  friend  of  his  in  his  prosperous  days. 
He  engaged  a  room  for  the  night.  The 
proprietor  noticed  the  gloomy  look  on  his 
face,  and  asked  what  was  the  matter. 
Nothing,  of  course.  But  the  hotel  man 
persisted,  and  wormed  the  secret  of  abject 
poverty  from  his  old-time  friend.  Without 
a  word,  he  went  to  the  safe  and  took  out  a 
roll  of  bills. 

"Help  yourself,"  he  said,  extending  the 
roll  to  Mantell. 

But  the  actor  would  take  only  ten  dollars 
to  tide  him  over  until  he  could  look  up 
some  Belfast  friends  in  Philadelphia. 

Mantell  went  to  his  room  and  was  pre- 
paring for  bed  when  somebody  knocked  at 
his  door.  He  opened  it,  and  there  stood  an 
actor  friend  of  his,  Robert  Downing. 

"Saw  your  name  on  the  register,  Bob, 
and  thought  I'd  come  up,"  Downing  greeted 
cheerfully. 

"Well,  well,"  was  Mantell's  reply,  with 
all  the  heartiness  he  could  muster,  "come 
in;  glad  to  see  you,  old  man." 

Downing  had  a  prosperous,  contented  look. 


154     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"Things  going  splendidly  with  you,  evi- 
dently," observed  Man  tell,  when  they  were 
seated.  "  What  are  you  doing?" 

"  Don't  be  shocked,"  answered  the  visitor. 
Then,  looking  carefully  around  with  mock 
caution,  he  whispered,  "Vaudeville!" 

Vaudeville,  in  those  days,  wasn't  as 
respectable  as  it  is  now.  It  had  not  long 
emerged  from  the  old-time  "variety,"  which 
was  a  sister  to  burlesque.  Circus  acrobats 
and  singers  of  songs  of  a  more  or  less 
"impolite"  type  were  still  the  star  per- 
formers. No  Sarah  Bernhardt,  then,  had 
gone  into  vaudeville,  nor  a  Beerbohm  Tree, 
nor  an  Ethel  Barrymore. 

Thoughts  surged  in  Mantell  that  made 
him  gulp.  Then  he  made  a  clean  breast  of 
his  financial  condition  to  his  friend. 

"Why  don't  you  try  it,  Bob?"  advised 
the  sleek-looking  Downing,  frankly.  "It 
isn't  half  bad,  once  you  have  made  the 
plunge,  and  the  pay  is  splendid." 

Mantell  struggled  with  his  pride.  Poverty 
soon  won  a  decisive  victory. 

"All  right,  I'll  do  it,"  he  said.  "Tell  me 
how." 

He  already  had  in  his  possession  a  clever 
one-act  comedy,  "A  Lesson  in  Acting," 
which  he  had  used  successfully  as  a  curtain- 
raiser. 

Downing  instructed  him  as  to  the  method 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     155 

of  getting  in  touch  with  B.  F.  Keith, 
who,  even  at  that  period,  was  the  king  of 
vaudeville,  and  by  whose  efforts  vaudeville 
was  gradually  raised  to  its  present  high 
standard. 

Negotiations  were  short.  Mantell  needed 
money.  Keith  needed  talent.  Satisfactory 
terms  were  arranged. 

Mantell  engaged  as  the  leading  woman 
of  his  little  vaudeville  company  Marie 
Booth  Russell,  a  young  actress  who  had 
succeeded  Charlotte  Behrens  as  leading 
woman  of  his  regular  company  the  preceding 
December,  when  Miss  Behrens  was  stricken. 
Miss  Russell  had  immediately  made  good, 
first  as  Gabrielle  in  "The  Secret  Warrant," 
and  then  hi  the  leading  roles  in  the  other 
plays  of  the  Mantell  repertoire.  Miss 
Russell,  who  at  that  time  was  twenty- 
three  years  old,  had  made  her  stage  debut 
three  years  before  in  a  drama  called  "The 
Avalanche."  Since  then,  she  had  played  in 
various  stock  and  repertoire  companies, 
gaining  just  such  experience  as  was  neces- 
sary for  success  in  a  company  like  Mantell's. 

Mantell  was  instructed  by  the  Keith 
office  to  go  to  Boston  for  an  early  opening. 
He  was  joined  there  by  Miss  Russell  and 
two  other  players  he  had  engaged.  They 
compared  purses  and  found  there  was  seven 
cents  among  the  four  of  them.  They  all 


156     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

went  to  a  little  American  plan  hotel,  where 
they  could  get  both  rooms  and  meals  by 
the  week,  without  payment  in  advance. 

The  little  sketch  was  quickly  rehearsed. 
All  the  members  of  the  cast  were  experi- 
enced in  stock  playing,  where  it  is  necessary 
to  get  a  full-length  drama  in  presentable 
shape  in  a  week's  time.  "A  Lesson  in 
Acting"  was  child's  play  in  comparison. 

The  playlet  caught  on  instantly.  Mantell 
was  given  eight  hundred  dollars  for  the 
first  week's  work.  He  could  scarcely  believe 
the  little  roll  of  bills  handed  him  was  so 
valuable.  He  hurried  to  his  room  and 
counted  the  money.  He  wouldn't  have 
exchanged  places  with  Carnegie. 

He  telephoned  Miss  Russell,  and  took 
her  to  one  of  the  finest  restaurants  in  Bos- 
ton. They  ordered  lobster  a  la  Newburg. 
It  was  the  first  fancy  dish  either  had  tasted 
in  many  weeks.  Nero  never  presided  at  a 
banquet  where  food  tasted  quite  so  good  as 
that  lobster.  From  the  little  dinner  dated 
a  courtship,  which,  two  years  later,  made 
Marie  Booth  Russell  Mrs.  Robert  Mantell. 

Mantell  now  had  safely  passed  the  lowest 
ebb  his  fortunes  ever  reached.  Never  again, 
after  the  receipt  of  that  first  eight  hundred 
dollars  for  a  week  in  vaudeville,  was  he 
"dead  broke."  Though  he  was  to  live  for 
four  more  years  in  "exile"  in  the  "prov- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     157 

inces,"  and  his  fortunes  were  not  to  mend 
materially  until  after  his  triumphal  re- 
entry into  New  York,  he  was  not  destined 
again  to  become  absolutely  penniless. 

The  vaudeville  engagement  continued 
for  seven  or  eight  weeks  in  Boston,  Phila- 
delphia, Duluth  and  Chicago,  and  might 
have  run  on  indefinitely  had  Mr.  Keith 
had  his  way.  But  Mr.  Mantell,  in  spite  of 
a  bank  account  already  swelling  to  gratify- 
ing proportions,  could  not  shake  off  the 
feeling  that  the  "varieties"  was  beneath  his 
dignity,  and  that  his  destiny  lay  on  the 
legitimate  stage. 

Meanwhile,  too,  Spain  had  been  given  a 
thorough  drubbing.  A  preliminary  treaty 
of  peace  had  been  signed  the  middle  of 
August,  and  the  country  was  jubilant  over 
the  results  of  a  successful  war.  The  spirit 
abroad  in  the  land  promised  prosperity  to 
the  theatres. 

With  his  pockets  full  of  money  and  his 
hopes  bubbling  with  the  froth  that  comes 
from  material  comfort,  Mantell,  again  under 
the  direction  of  Hanley,  opened  a  new 
season  early  in  September.  Business  bright- 
ened a  bit.  "Monbars"  and  "The  Corsican 
Brothers"  were  again  the  features  of  the 
repertoire,  and  the  receipts  ran  in  the 
neighborhood  of  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a 
week.  It  was  still  starvation  business,  but 


158     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

it  was  better  than  that  of  the  previous 
season  when  nine  hundred  dollars  was 
exceptional,  and  it  promised  well  for  the 
future. 

The  season  was  two  weeks  old  when 
"Rubber"  joined  Mantell  in  Pittsburgh. 
Rubber  was  a  fox  terrier,  who  became 
Mantell's  constant  companion,  and  who  is 
worthy  of  going  down  in  history  alongside 
the  dog  of  the  Seven  Sleepers,  Rip  Van 
Winkle's  faithful  cur  and  the  hound  dog  of 
Missouri. 

Rubber's  history  extends  over  a  period  of 
fifteen  years,  during  which  he  was  so  be- 
photographed  and  written  up  in  the  news- 
papers that  it  was  hard  to  determine  which 
was  the  star  of  the  show,  Mantell  or  his 
dog.  Rubber  became  known  to  the  mana- 
gers of  all  the  big  hotels  in  the  country  where 
actors  stop,  and  he  was  the  only  canine  in 
the  profession  universally  welcome.  Never, 
after  a  first  visit,  was  his  right  to  first-class 
accommodations  questioned. 

Rubber's  experience  in  riding  on  Pull- 
mans, however,  was  not  always  so  pleasant. 
Pullman  conductors  and  porters,  being 
transients  seldom  encountered  by  travelers 
a  second  time,  had  not  the  opportunities  of 
becoming  acquainted  with  Rubber  and  his 
good  qualities  that  the  hotel  clerks  had. 
But  Rubber  was  possessed  of  an  intelligence 


MANTKLL  AND  HIS  FAMOUS  DOG,  "RUBBER 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     159 

almost  human,  and  it  wasn't  long  before  he 
learned  a  trick  by  which  he  never  failed  to 
outwit  the  Pullman  people.  He  knew  from 
experience  in  the  early  days  that  if  he 
failed  he  would  have  to  ride  in  the  lonesome 
baggage  cars. 

Here  is  how  it  was  done.  Mantell  would 
engage  the  attention  of  the  porter  with  his 
grips  and  bundles.  Wieda,  the  little  Jap 
valet,  would  take  care  of  the  conductor 
with  questions  as  to  the  time  of  leaving  and 
the  route.  Then,  when  everybody's  notice 
was  distracted,  Mantell  would  say  to  Rub- 
ber, "Beat  it!"  Up  the  steps  the  dog 
would  spring,  quick  as  a  flash,  and  make  for 
the  stateroom  which  he  knew  his  master 
would  occupy.  There  he  would  crawl  under 
a  seat  out  of  the  way  until  the  others 
arrived  and  all  danger  of  detection  was 
passed.  The  porter's  eyes  seldom  failed  to 
bulge  when  he  found  Rubber  in  taking 
down  the  beds,  but  a  fifty-cent  piece  always 
closed  his  mouth. 

Rubber  was  born  in  Woodstock,  Ontario, 
and  was  presented  to  Mantell  when  he  was 
two  months  old.  From  that  time  until  two 
or  three  years  before  the  end,  he  was 
seldom  out  of  sight  of  the  actor,  who  grew 
to  love  him  almost  as  a  child. 

As  Rubber  grew  old,  his  sight  and  hearing 
began  to  fail,  and  Mantell  left  him  at  home 


160     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

for  fear  he  would  get  run  over  and  hurt  in 
the  cities.  Finally,  he  became  almost  totally 
deaf  and  blind. 

In  the  spring  of  1913,  about  two  or  three 
weeks  before  the  close  of  the  season,  while 
Mr.  Mantell  was  playing  Peterboro,  Can- 
ada, not  a  great  way  from  the  birthplace  of 
the  dog,  Rubber  disappeared  from  the  home 
in  Atlantic  Highlands,  New  Jersey,  and 
was  never  found,  although  a  liberal  reward 
was  offered  for  him  or  his  body.  It  is  one 
of  the  sorrows  of  Mant ell's  life  that  he 
never  could  find  his  old  friend  and  give  him 
decent  burial. 

Mr.  Mantell,  after  a  strange  experience 
in  Peterboro,  is  almost  inclined  to  believe 
in  the  existence  of  a  canine  soul.  On  the  very 
night  of  the  disappearance,  Rubber  ap- 
peared to  him  in  a  dream,  and  talked.  "I 
am  all  right  now,"  he  said.  "I  can  see  and 
hear,  and  I  have  no  aches  nor  pains." 
Three  nights  later,  with  no  news  yet  from 
Atlantic  Highlands,  the  dog  appeared  also 
to  the  Japanese  valet  in  a  dream,  and  told 
him  practically  the  same  thing. 

In  the  early  summer  of  1899,  at  the  close 
of  a  season  that  came  near  paying  salaries 
and  expenses,  Mantell  re-entered  vaudeville 
in  "A  Lesson  in  Acting,"  repeating  the 
engagements  of  the  previous  summer  in 
Boston,  Philadelphia  and  Chicago.  Then 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE      161 

he  and  Rubber  went  to  Atlantic  City  and 
later  to  Asbury  Park  to  rest  during  the 
remaining  period  of  the  hot  weeks. 

The  next  season,  which  extended  through 
the  waning  days  of  the  old  century  and  me 
dawning  of  the  new,  witnessed  a  material 
improvement  in  the  fortunes  of  Man  tell. 
Still  under  the  management  of  Hanley,  he 
opened  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  in  a  new 
play,  "The  Dagger  and  the  Cross,"  drama- 
tized from  Joseph  Hatton's  novel  by  the 
Canadian  Tremayne,  who  had  written  for 
Mantell  "The  Secret  Warrant." 

Business  improved  decidedly.  In  Pitts- 
burgh, it  reached  the  astonishing  total  of 
$4465.  Mantell  and  Hanley,  accustomed  to 
statements  of  from  $1500  to  $1800,  were 
dazed.  In  Cincinnati  the  receipts  soared  to 
$4600.  Again  their  hearts  fluttered  danger- 
ously. Mantell,  today,  with  his  expensive 
company,  would  look  at  such  figures  gloom- 
ily. But  then  they  had  the  appearance  of 
the  resources  of  the  First  National  Bank  of 
Bonanza. 

The  season  continued  fairly  prosperous, 
and  from  the  small,  but  constant,  profits, 
Mantell  and  Hanley  wiped  out  several  of 
their  most  pressing  debts. 

More  important  still,  Mantell  had  saved 
enough  from  his  salary,  which  he  had  drawn 
in  full  this  season  for  the  first  tune  in  three 


162     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

years,  to  feel  justified  in  taking  unto  him- 
self another  wife,  and  a  little  while  after  the 
close  of  the  tour  in  May,  he  quietly  married 
Marie  Booth  Russell  in  Jersey  City.  He 
sailed  a  few  days  later  with  his  bride  for  a 
honeymoon  visit  to  his  old  home  in  Ireland 
—  the  first  visit  in  many  years. 

The  marriage  with  Marie  Booth  Russell 
resulted  in  a  sensational  episode  with  the 
four-year-old  Ethel  Mantell  as  the  heroine. 
Mantell  wanted  his  little  daughter,  but 
her  mother's  relatives,  with  whom  she  was 
living,  refused  to  give  her  up.  Mantell 
resorted  to  extreme  tactics,  which  the 
yellow  newspapers  dubbed  "kidnapping." 
He  got  her  into  his  possession,  and,  in  spite 
of  a  legal  battle,  was  permitted  to  keep  her. 
Marie  Booth  Russell  had  a  daughter, 
Louise,  by  a  former  marriage,  who  was 
about  Ethel's  own  age,  and  the  two  girls 
grew  up  as  sisters.  No  children  were  born 
to  Mantell  and  Marie  Booth  Russell,  but 
each  adopted,  in  affection,  the  daughter  of 
the  other,  and  it  became  a  snug  and  cozy 
family. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

In  Which  is  Related  how  a  Romantic  Star 
was  Finally  Transformed  into  a  Classicist, 
and  how  the  Way  was  Paved  for  his  Return 
from  Exile. 

THE  transformation  of  Robert  Man- 
tell  from  a  romantic  to  a  classic 
star  was  slow  and  gradual,  though 
the  impression  on  the  memory  of 
the  average  theatregoer  is  that  it  was  made 
with  something  of  the  rapidity  of  the  transi- 
tion from  Dr.  Jekyll  into  Mr.  Hyde.   This 
impression  is  due,  in  the  first  place,  to  the 
almost   complete   change   in   his   style   of 
acting,  but,  secondly,  and  more  important, 
to  the  bizarre  fortunes  of  his  career. 

In  1883,  Mantell  as  Loris  Ipanoff  flashed 
upon  New  York  as  the  most  brilliant  ro- 
mantic actor  of  his  time.  For  ten  years  he 
shone  as  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  and 
then  suddenly  he  disappeared  from  the 
theatrical  heavens  of  the  metropolis.  For 
ten  years  more,  then,  he  roamed  around  in 
the  darkness  of  the  "provinces,"  and  New 
York  forgot  him.  Then,  as  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly  as  in  1883,  he  burst  upon 
Broadway  again.  But  this  time  it  was  as  a 

163 


164     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

classic  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  in 
"Richard  III." 

The  transformation  was  complete.  To 
Gotham  the  interval  was  a  psychological 
blank,  and  therefore  negligible.  It  was 
the  same  sort  of  thing  that  happens  when 
you  go  back  to  your  old  home  town  after 
an  interval  of  a  decade.  The  girl  who  was 
a  tangle-headed  tomboy  then  is  now  a 
sweet  and  modest  and  beautiful  young 
woman.  To  you,  the  transformation  has 
been  startlingly  sudden.  Her  mother,  who 
has  watched  her  grow  daily  from  ten  to 
twenty,  has  hardly  noticed  a  change. 

When  Mantell  was  barred  from  New 
York,  he  was  at  the  climax  of  his  vogue  in 
"Monbars"  and  "The  Corsican  Brothers." 
He  had  produced  "Hamlet"  and  "Othello," 
it  is  true,  and  with  moderate  success,  but 
it  was  a  success  merely  that  gave  promise 
of  a  more  glorious  future.  The  immediate 
achievement  was  not  overwhelming.  He 
was  brilliant  in  "Monbars"  and  "The 
Corsican  Brothers."  He  was  acceptable  as 
an  interesting  novelty  in  "Hamlet"  and 
"Othello." 

During  the  ten  years  of  his  exile,  there 
occurred  a  transformation  so  gradual  as  to 
be  almost  imperceptible.  The  brilliant  light 
of  "Monbars"  slowly  but  surely  faded. 
The  pale  light  of  "Othello"  slowly  but 


ItOKKUT  HIUTE  MANTKLL 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     165 

surely  brightened.  At  the  close  of  the 
century,  it  would  have  taken  an  astronomi- 
cal photometer  to  detect  the  difference  in 
brilliancy.  "Monbars,"  "The  Corsican 
Brothers,"  "Hamlet,"  "Othello" —  they 
were  practically  equal  in  artistry  and  in 
drawing  power. 

The  equilibrium  was  not  greatly  dis- 
turbed the  first  season  of  the  new  century 
by  two  new  additions  to  the  repertoire,  one 
classic  and  the  other  romantic  —  "Romeo 
and  Juliet,"  by  William  Shakespeare,  and 
"The  Free  Lance,"  by  W.  A.  Tremayne, 
the  third  play  written  for  Mantell  by  the 
Canadian.  Neither  venture  was  more  than 
moderately  successful.  But  "Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  this  time,  was  retained  in  the  per- 
manent repertoire,  and  not  rejected  as  it 
had  been  at  the  time  Mantell  made  his  first 
unfortunate  revival  of  the  romantic  tragedy 
in  America. 

The  balance  reached  between  the  classic 
and  romantic  parts  of  the  repertoire  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century  was  not  long 
maintained.  Slowly  but  surely  the  classic 
end  of  the  beam  began  to  force  up  the 
romantic  end.  Mantell  never  himself 
realized  how  much  the  equilibrium  had 
been  disturbed  until  the  autumn  of  1910, 
when  he  produced  "The  O'Flynn,"  which, 
by  all  the  old  rules,  should  have  been  a 


166     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

romantic  success,  but  which  proved  a  dis- 
mal failure  financially. 

Mantell  and  Hanley  were  not  blind  to 
the  state  of  the  balance  at  the  dawn  of  the 
century,  and  they  took  measures  accord- 
ingly. After  "The  Free  Lance,"  they  sought 
no  more  new  plays,  but  during  the  summer 
vacation  of  1901,  Mantell  and  his  wife 
retired  to  the  quiet  little  village  of  Atlantic 
Highlands,  New  Jersey,  to  study  "Riche- 
lieu" and  "Richard  III."  It  was  their  first 
visit  to  Atlantic  Highlands.  They  were  so 
charmed  with  the  spot,  both  for  a  summer 
home  and  as  a  quiet  place  for  preparation 
for  the  ensuing  season,  that  they  returned 
there  summer  after  summer,  and  finally 
bought  the  Leonard  homestead,  which  has 
since  become  famous  as  "Brucewood,"  the 
beautiful  Mantell  estate. 

On  September  2,  1901,  Robert  Mantell 
began  his  first  tour  as  an  avowed  classic 
star.  "Hamlet"  was  advertised  as  the 
feature  of  the  tour,  and  "Richelieu"  and 
"Richard  III"  were  announced  for  pro- 
duction a  little  later.  "Othello,"  too,  was 
brought  into  prominence.  "Monbars"  and 
"The  Corsican  Brothers"  were  not  dropped, 
however,  from  the  repertoire.  Mantell  and 
Hanley  did  not  feel  quite  sure  enough  of 
themselves  to  burn  the  bridges  behind  them. 

The  season  was  less  than  a  week  old  when 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     167 

President  McKinley  was  assassinated  at 
Buffalo.  During  the  period  of  public  mourn- 
ing that  followed,  the  theatres  fared  badly 
everywhere. 

On  the  night  of  September  24,  at  Zanes- 
ville,  Ohio,  Mantell  appeared  for  the  first 
time  in  his  career  in  the  title  role  of  "Riche- 
lieu." It  was  as  DeMauprat  in  this  drama 
of  Bulwer's,  it  will  be  remembered,  that  he 
in  his  amateur  days  played  for  the  first 
time  in  a  real  theatre. 

The  launching  of  "Richelieu"  was  suc- 
cessful, and  Mantell  turned  his  attention 
immediately  to  putting  the  finishing  touches 
to  "Richard  III."  The  first  performance 
was  given  at  South  Bend,  Indiana,  October 
12.  The  receipts  were  only  $238.  But  the 
following  Monday  night  in  Chicago,  "  Rich- 
ard "  drew  $787,  and  on  the  strength  of  that 
showing  was  duly  elected  to  the  permanent 
repertoire.  A  few  weeks  later,  it  played  to 
$911.30  in  Toronto,  which  was  the  biggest 
house  Mantell  had  enjoyed  since  the  pros- 
perous days  before  the  exile. 

It  was  fortunate  for  Mantell  that  he 
retained  "Richard  III."  For  "Richard," 
after  undergoing  three  years  of  polish,  was 
to  re-establish  tne  star  in  New  York. 

During  this  first  season  as  an  avowed 
classic  star,  the  way  was  paved  for  the 
return  to  Gotham.  The  one  hundred  dollars 


168     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

a  week  alimony  the  actor  had  refused  to 
pay  had  steadily  accumulated,  and,  with 
interest,  had  passed  the  magnificent  total 
of  sixty  thousand  dollars.  Not  even  the 
opposition  lawyers  indulged  any  longer  in 
rosy  dreams  that  this  king's  ransom  could 
ever  be  paid.  Accordingly,  negotiations  were 
opened  between  them  and  Mantell's  law- 
yers. On  December  18,  1901,  in  St.  Louis, 
they  came  to  an  agreement.  If  Mantell 
would  pay  ten  thousand  dollars,  all  old 
scores  would  be  wiped  out,  and  the  alimony 
difficulties  would  cease  forever.  Mantell, 
for  the  sake  of  re-entry  into  New  York, 
gladly  shouldered  this  debt,  and  his  alert 
friend,  the  deputy  sheriff,  was  called  in 
from  his  patrol  of  the  border. 

The  following  summer  Mantell  rested  in 
Brooklyn  —  not  because  he  was  so  de- 
lighted with  the  city  that  groans  under  the 
burden  of  Manhattan's  satirical  wit,  but 
because  of  the  delicious  luxury  of  sleeping 
on  long-prohibited  soil  without  fear  of  dis- 
turbance by  a  policeman's  whistle.  This 
was  his  only  summer  in  Brooklyn.  The 
Jersey  coast  was  his  best  love. 

The  impression  is  general  that  Mantell's 
triumphant  re-establishment  in  New  York 
followed  immediately  the  settlement  of  his 
alimony  difficulties.  Such  is  not  the  case. 
Nearly  three  years  elapsed  between  De- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE      169 

cember  18,  1901,  when  the  lawyers  came  to 
an  agreement,  and  December  5,  1904,  when 
Mantell's  performance  of  "Richard  III" 
at  the  Princess  Theatre  demonstrated  that 
the  line  of  great  tragedians  on  the  American 
stage  had  not  ended  with  Edwin  Booth. 

During  these  three  years,  Mantell  even 
played  two  engagements  in  New  York 
without  anybody  being  aware  of  his  pres- 
ence. The  first  opened  November  30,  1903, 
and  continued  for  three  weeks.  Mantell 
occupied  the  very  theatre  that  had  been 
the  scene  of  his  triumph  in  "Fedora." 
But  the  theatrical  center  had  moved  far 
out  Broadway,  and  Fourteenth  Street  was 
all  but  forgotten.  The  receipts  of  the  en- 
gagement by  weeks  were  $2400,  $1900  and 
$1600.  Verily,  Robert  Mantell  was  known 
no  longer  in  New  York.  Verily,  too,  as  the 
rapid  decline  in  business  week  by  week 
showed,  he  couldn't  "come  back."  During 
this  engagement,  he  played  first  "The 
Corsican  Brothers"  and  next  "The  Light 
of  Other  Days,"  a  new  play  with  which  he 
had  opened  that  season. 

The  second  New  York  appearance  was 
made  a  few  weeks  later  in  the  same  season, 
January  8,  1904.  The  theatre  was  the 
Metropolis  in  the  Bronx.  It  was  a  play- 
house that  the  Park  Row  critics  did  not 
succeed  in  finding.  But  business  improved. 


170     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"The  Light  of  Other  Days"  drew  thirty- 
five  hundred  dollars  during  the  week. 

Really,  dear  reader,  I  must  apologize  for 
bothering  your  head  with  figures,  especially 
if  it  happens  to  be  a  dear  little  feminine  head. 
The  masculine  brain  can  possibly  stand  it, 
but  what  cares  the  delicate  dura  mater  of 
femininity  for  base  money  —  and  limousines, 
and  fur  coats  and  diamond  necklaces? 

The  apology  was  in  my  mind  away  back 
yonder,  but  I  remembered  that  Balzac 
converted  bank  accounts  into  romance; 
that  our  own  beloved  George  M.  Cohan 
waves  a  dollar  bill  as  artistically  as  an 
American  flag;  and  I  thought  maybe  you 
would  pardon  me,  without  the  asking.  But 
conscience,  at  this  point  —  artistic  con- 
science—  becomes  too  strong.  I  can  only 
plead  that  truthful  and  exact  figures,  so 
rare  in  discussions  of  the  stage  as  to  be  on 
the  verge  of  the  poetical  from  that  fact 
alone,  tell  the  story  of  my  hero's  poverty 
more  eloquently  than  any  other  device  at 
my  command.  I  promise  to  offend  hence- 
forth as  little  as  possible.  I  would,  for  your 
sake,  my  brain  were  constructed  in  such  a 
way  as  to  be  able  to  flash  forth  the  glorious 
visions  of  a  Monte  Cristo  or  a  Charlie 
Chaplin.  For,  with  dreams  of  gorgeous 
millions,  I  could  not  fail  to  delight  you  when 
I  am  forced  to  speak  of  money. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     171 

And  further  to  show  you  how  penitent 
I  am,  I  am  going  to  unfold  here  a  tale  of 
romance  that  cannot  fail  to  re-establish  me 
in  your  good  graces.  It  belongs  in  these 
latter  days  of  Hanley's  management,  and 
has  as  its  heroine  a  mysterious  lady  who 
always  wore  a  bouquet  of  blood-red  roses. 

This  young  woman,  although  Mantell, 
who  was  living  happily  with  Marie  Booth 
Russell,  had  never  met  her,  followed  the 
matinee  idol  from  city  to  city  for  several 
days,  buying  a  seat  always  in  a  box  nearest 
the  stage  to  watch  his  performances.  The 
experience  is  not  unparalleled  in  the  lives 
of  most  handsome  young  men  who  have 
arrived  at  distinction  on  the  stage,  for 
femininity,  at  times,  is  as  foolish  as  —  as  — • 
well,  say,  as  masculinity. 

No  further  notice  than  good-natured 
banter  of  the  star,  would  have  been  taken 
of  the  lady  of  the  blood-red  roses  by  Hanley 
and  the  rest  of  the  company,  including 
Mantell,  had  it  not  been  that  her  sudden 
disappearance  from  a  hotel  in  Bridgeport, 
Connecticut,  led  the  hotel  keeper  and  the 
police  to  discover  that  she  had  left  behind  a 
heavy  pistol  with  all  the  chambers  loaded. 

Nothing  more  was  seen  of  her  until  the 
company  arrived  in  Hartford.  Then,  on  the 
opening  night  of  the  engagement  there  she 
was  discovered  by  Hanley,  sitting  in  a  box, 


172     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

but  with  the  draperies  drawn  in  front  of 
her. 

Hanley  went  back  stage  and  told  Mantell 
and  the  others  about  it.  There  was  no 
delicate  way  they  could  see  of  ejecting  the 
woman,  since  she  was  causing  no  disturb- 
ance, but  every  one  was  afraid  she  might 
fire  suddenly  at  the  actor  during  the  course 
of  the  performance. 

Then  stepped  forth  a  heroine  in  the 
person  of  Miss  Corona  Ricardo,  a  fiery 
little  Italian  actress,  who  was  playing  juve- 
nile leads,  while  Marie  Booth  Russell  was 
playing  the  heavier  parts.  Miss  Ricardo 
produced  a  bright  and  dangerous-looking 
little  dagger,  such  as  women  of  the  Latin 
races  not  infrequently  carry,  and  volun- 
teered to  protect  the  star  by  placing  herself 
between  him  and  the  lady  with  the  blood- 
red  roses.  Her  services  were  accepted,  and 
the  play  proceeded.  Before  the  performance 
was  over,  the  mysterious  woman  disap- 
peared from  the  box,  and  neither  Mantell 
nor  any  of  the  company  ever  saw  her  again. 
Miss  Ricardo  was  inclined  to  believe  the 
stranger  saw  the  glitter  of  her  dagger,  and 
thought  better  of  any  possible  plans  of 
assassination,  and  the  little  actress  swore 
she  would  have  used  her  weapon  had  there 
been  a  suspicious  move  on  the  part  of  the 
red  bouquet. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     173 

The  season  which  opened  in  the  fall  of 
1902  was  the  last  under  the  management 
of  "Mart"  Hanley,  who  had  struggled 
pluckily  against  odds  in  the  enthusiastic 
hope  of  making  Mantell  ultimately  a  highly 
profitable  star.  But  he  had  failed.  First, 
because  of  Mantell's  exile  from  New  York. 
Second,  because  Mantell  was  too  good  an 
actor  ever  to  be  more  than  moderately 
popular  in  the  second-rate  theatres,  where 
he  was  sandwiched  in  between  "The  King 
of  the  Opium  Ring"  and  "The  Hired  Girl's 
Millions." 

It  was  largely  Mantell's  desire  to  get 
away  from  the  companionship  of  the  lurid 
melodramas  that  led  to  the  severance  of 
his  connection  with  Hanley.  In  the  autumn 
of  1903,  he  opened  under  the  nominal 
management  of  Max  Zoellner,  who  negoti- 
ated first-class  bookings  for  him  with  the 
Klaw  &  Erlanger  syndicate.  "The  Light  of 
Other  Days,"  his  new  play,  in  which  he  was 
to  appear  in  New  York,  was  launched  Sep- 
tember S.  It  reached  the  climax  of  its 
financial  popularity  at  the  Olympic  Theatre, 
St.  Louis,  when  the  receipts  attained  the 
total,  which  looked  phenomenal  to  Mantell, 
of  fifty -four  hundred  dollars  on  the  week. 

But,  after  St.  Louis,  Mantell  was  sent 
into  wretched  territory  in  the  South,  and  it 
was  to  escape  starvation  that  he  despatched 


174     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Zoellner  from  Gainesville,  Texas,  to  secure 
bookings  in  New  York.  The  engagements 
at  the  Fourteenth  Street  Theatre  and  at  the 
Metropolis  resulted. 

The  New  York  experiment  was  so  dis- 
couraging that  when  the  next  chance  came 
to  try  his  fortune  there,  Mantell  had  little 
heart  for  the  enterprise.  His  company  was 
not  of  metropolitan  calibre  —  he  knew  that. 
He  knew,  also,  that  his  productions  were 
wretched. 

The  opportunity  developed  the  following 
season.  Mantell  opened  in  the  fall  under 
Zoellner's  direction  and  with  syndicate 
bookings.  He  started  with  "The  Light  of 
Other  Days"  as  his  featured  play,  but  busi- 
ness was  so  bad  that  he  decided  to  avail 
himself  again  of  the  discovery  he  and  Hanley 
had  made  at  the  dawn  of  the  century  that 
the  classics  were  more  profitable  to  him. 

On  the  night  of  November  5,  1904,  at 
Pottsville,  Pa.,  "Richard  III"  was  pro- 
moted to  the  "featured"  place  in  his  reper- 
toire, and  "The  Light  of  Other  Days"  was 
banished.  Since  that  night,  Mantell  has 
been  exclusively  a  classic  star. 

Never  before  that  day  in  Pottsville  nor 
since  has  MantelPs  versatility  been  so 
taxed.  Besides  being  star,  he  was  stage 
carpenter,  property  man,  flyman,  painter, 
wigster,  wardrobe  man  and  musical  di- 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     175 

rector.  He  hung  his  own  scenery,  set  his 
stage  and  gave  the  signal  for  the  ringing 
up  and  ringing  down  of  the  curtain.  From 
nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  midnight 
he  did  not  leave  the  theatre. 

It  happened  that  he  had  a  new  stage 
crew  throughout.  He  had  sent  to  New 
York  for  the  production  of  "Richard  III," 
which  he  had  not  removed  from  the  store- 
house at  the  beginning  of  the  season,  and 
it  reached  Pottsville  on  the  morning  of  his 
own  arrival  there.  Nobody  but  himself 
was  familiar  with  it.  After  it  had  been 
hauled  into  the  theatre,  he  had  to  see  to  the 
unpacking  and  hanging  of  the  production, 
to  the  fitting  of  the  wardrobe  on  the  vari- 
ous actors  and  actresses  of  the  company, 
to  the  fitting  and  trimming  of  the  wigs,  to 
the  direction  of  the  orchestra  in  the  re- 
hearsal of  the  music,  to  the  touching  up  of 
the  scenery  where  it  had  been  worn  and 
scratched,  and  to  the  thousand  and  one 
other  details,  which  Harry  Keefer,  then 
the  new  stage  manager,  since  that  day  has 
taken  off  his  shoulders.  Into  the  two  hours 
between  six  and  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening 
was  crowded  an  appalling  amount  of  work. 

But  the  performance  went  off  smoothly 
enough,  and  "Richard  III"  demonstrated 
its  fitness  to  succeed  "The  Light  of  Other 
Days."  Mantell  retained  "Richelieu," 


176     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"Hamlet"  and  "Othello"  and  resurrected 
"The  Lady  of  Lyons." 

The  change,  however,  was  not  followed 
by  any  phenomenal  soaring  in  fortune. 
The  towns  into  which  he  was  booked  were 
far  from  desirable.  Evidently  the  planners 
of  routes  had  little  confidence  in  the  ability 
of  the  new  classic  star,  so  long  a  "barn- 
stormer," to  interest  playgoers  in  the  large 
cities. 

It  was  while  he  was  still  wandering  from 
one  "one-night  stand"  to  the  next  in 
Pennsylvania,  that  Mantell  received  from 
the  Shuberts,  then  a  new  firm  of  managers 
endeavoring  to  insert  a  wedge  into  the 
monopoly  of  the  syndicate,  a  letter  offering 
"choice  time"  in  New  York  City. 

Mantell  carefully  reviewed  his  condition. 
He  was  not  prepared  to  face  a  Broadway 
audience  in  a  first-class  theatre  with  his 
company  and  productions.  Nobody  real- 
ized that  better  than  he.  At  the  same  time, 
there  were  no  prospects  of  his  ever  being  so 
prepared,  if  things  went  on  as  they  were 
going  now.  He  had  nothing  to  lose  —  per- 
haps there  might  be  something  to  gain. 
He  accepted  the  proposition. 

When  he  got  a  reply  to  his  letter,  he 
would  have  smiled  satanically,  if  he  had 
had  the  foresight  to  include  Goethe's 
Mephisto  in  his  repertoire.  For  the  "choice 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     177 

time"  allotted  him  was  notoriously  the 
worst  in  the  year  —  the  three  weeks  before 
Christmas.  And,  to  cap  a  climax  that 
didn't  need  a  cap,  he  was  assigned  the 
Princess  Theatre,  a  little  upstairs  house 
with  a  stage  too  small  to  accommodate 
even  his  own  miserable  productions. 

But  Mantell  had  gambled  before  with 
fate,  and  he  decided  to  make  the  best  of  a 
wretched  situation.  With  the  decision  came 
an  iron  determination  to  succeed.  Wrath 
lashed  him  on,  just  as  it  did  the  opening 
night  of  "Fedora"  when  the  audience  sat 
frozen. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Dramatic  Re-Entry  into  the  Limelight,  Sur- 
rounded by  the  Ghosts  of  the  Tragedians 
of  Eld. 

THE  dramatic  story  of  Robert  Man- 
tell's  return  to  popular  favor  in 
New  York  is  known  to  all  atten- 
tive followers  of  the  theatre,  and 
ranks  with  the  classic  stories  of  the  stage  of 
all  time.  Before  repeating  it  here,  I  want 
to  relate  a  prefatory  tale,  which  has  not 
been  told  before  in  its  entirety.  Mr.  Man- 
tell  told  it  first  to  me  in  confidence,  as  he 
felt  that  it  was  tinged  with  a  "vain  glory" 
distasteful  to  him,  but  later,  at  my  urgent 
request  for  permission  to  use  it  here,  he 
left  it  to  my  "discretions."  As  newspaper 
training  has  taught  me  to  be  as  little  dis- 
creet as  possible  where  a  good  story  is 
involved,  I  am  going  to  repeat  this  one. 

On  the  night  before  his  scheduled  ap- 
pearance at  the  Princess,  Mantell  slept  at 
the  Lambs'  Club,  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber. His  means  were  very  slender,  and  he 
confesses  frankly  that  he  put  up  there  in- 
stead of  going  to  a  first-class  hotel  to  save 
the  little  money  he  had.  The  club  was 

178 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     179 

crowded,  and  Mantell  was  assigned  to  a 
couch  in  the  library. 

Earlier  in  the  evening  he  had  been  dis- 
cussing his  proposed  venture  with  friends  at 
the  club. 

"Have  you  gone  crazy,  Bob?"  one  had 
asked.  "'Richard'  for  an  opening!  Whoever 
heard  of  such  a  thing!" 

"Are  you  in  your  second  childhood, 
Mantell?"  had  observed  another. 

"  Do  you  think  New  York  wants  'Richard* 
—  especially  at  Christmas  time?"  a  third 
had  asked.  "  Why  don't  you  do  *  Monbars ' 
or  'The  Corsican  Brothers/  or  something 
like  that?  I  tell  you,  Shakespeare's  a  dead 
one  in  this  town." 

"If  you've  got  to  give  us  Shakespeare," 
advised  a  fourth,  "why  don't  you  do  some- 
thing that's  got  a  chance?  'Hamlet*  or 
' The  Merchant '  or  something?  You'll  never 
get  a  nickel  with  *  Richard.'  You  can't 
draw  a  critic  to  the  Princess  even  for  the 
luxury  of  roasting  you." 

These  opinions  were  still  ringing  in  Man- 
tell's  head  when  he  retired  to  the  library 
for  the  night.  He  wasn't  so  sure  but  that 
the  Job's  comforters  knew  what  they  were 
talking  about.  He  threw  himself  on  his 
couch,  and  gazed  vacantly,  with  a  dull, 
mental  pain,  at  the  walls.  Gradually  there 
grew  into  his  consciousness  the  pictures  of 


180     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

the  great  dead  tragedians  hanging  there. 
Edwin  Booth  looked  at  him  —  he  thought 
not  unkindly.  There  was  positively  a 
friendly  twinkle  in  Macready's  eye.  Edwin 
Forrest  was  ferocious  enough,  but  even  his 
ferocity  softened  as  Mantell  gazed  steadily 
at  him.  Kemble,  Kean,  Garrick  and  the 
rest  —  they  all  seemed  to  him  sympathetic. 

Mantell  arose  from  his  couch  and  ad- 
dressed them: 

"Look  here,  you  mighty  tragedians  of 
the  past!  You've  got  to  come  to  the 
theatre  tomorrow  night  and  help  me! 
Everybody's  about  quit  doing  this  sort  of 
thing.  It's  up  to  you  to  aid  me  in  passing 
along  the  traditions  and  keep  your  memory 
green ! " 

Then  he  "woke  up "  to  himself,  and  with 
a  flash  of  characteristic  Scotch-Irish  humor 
he  continued: 

"  Besides,  you  blooming  old  warriors,  if  you 
don't  help  me,  I'll  thrash  every  one  of  you 
when  I  meet  you  on  the  banks  of  the  Styx ! " 

In  the  audience  at  the  Princess  the  next 
night  was  a  devout  Spiritualist,  a  personal 
friend  of  Mantell's.  A  day  or  two  after  the 
performance,  this  Spiritualist,  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  scene  in  the  Lambs'  library, 
met  Mantell  on  Broadway.  After  a  warm 
handshake  of  congratulations,  the  Spiritual- 
ist remarked  solemnly: 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     181 

"You  may  believe  it  or  not,  Bob,  but  in 
the  theatre  the  night  of  'Richard*  there 
was  a  whole  crowd  of  souls  of  dead  trage- 
dians, and  every  one  of  them  was  boosting 
for  you!" 

Whether  there  were  any  ghosts  of  the 
dead  at  the  Princess  that  night  is  left, 
without  prejudice,  to  the  credulity  of  the 
reader.  Certain  it  is  that  there  were  ghosts 
of  flesh  and  blood,  as  Carlyle  insists  on 
styling  animated  humanity,  marveling,  as 
he  does,  that  we  should  look  for  miracles 
in  the  graveyards  when  so  many  miracles 
are  elbowing  us  daily  in  the  crowded  streets. 
These  "ghosts"  were  not  especially  numer- 
ous, but  the  little  audience  was  an  attentive 
one,  and  —  very  important  for  Mantell  — 
there  were  present  a  few  newspaper  writers, 
who,  in  the  dull  season  before  the  holidays, 
had  no  new  productions  to  occupy  their 
minds.  They  had  strolled  into  the  Princess 
because  there  was  no  place  else  to  go. 

Mantell  strained  every  nerve  to  project 
across  the  footlights  everything  that  was 
in  him.  But  never  in  stage  history  in  a 
moment  so  critical  has  a  great  actor  been 
so  aggravatingly  handicapped. 

It  had  come  about  in  this  way.  The  stage 
crew  at  the  Princess  that  afternoon  had 
demanded  a  scenic  rehearsal.  It  would 
have  meant  a  little  money  for  them,  but 


182     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Mantell  had  no  money  to  spend  for  any- 
thing not  absolutely  essential.  He  had 
with  him  his  own  crew,  who,  on  the  one- 
night  stands  in  Pennsylvania,  after  his 
personal  instructions  at  Pottsville,  had 
become  proficient  in  handling  "Richard 
III,"  without  any  help  whatsoever  from  the 
badly  trained  men  so  often  found  on  village 
stages. 

Mantell's  refusal  to  order  a  scenic  re- 
hearsal rankled  in  the  breasts  of  the  Prin- 
cess house  crew.  They  concocted  a  scheme 
of  revenge  that  would  "break  up  the  show." 

When  Mantell  walked  out  into  the  first 
narrow  scene  where  the  back  drop  was  only 
three  or  four  feet  from  the  footlights,  and 
where  he  necessarily  stood  with  his  back 
almost  touching  the  curtain,  they  pro- 
ceeded to  put  their  plan  into  execution. 

One  of  the  stage  hands  in  crossing  behind 
the  drop  lunged  heavily  against  the  actor 
through  the  canvas,  almost  knocking  him 
down.  With  a  sneer,  he  begged  the  pardon 
of  Harry  Keefer,  Mantell's  stage  manager, 
who  had  witnessed  the  "accident."  He 
had  hardly  done  so,  when  another  tripped 
over  a  stage  brace,  and  saved  himself  from 
falling  only  by  throwing  out  his  arms  and 
striking  Mantell  a  heavy  blow  through  the 
drop. 

So  admirably  impassive  did  Mantell  seem 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     183 

to  the  insolence,  that  even  the  most  experi- 
enced playgoer  in  the  audience  did  not 
notice  that  there  was  anything  seriously 
wrong.  They  may  have  seen  the  drop 
move,  but  that  occasionally  happens  by 
accident  when  a  new  setting  is  being 
erected  behind. 

Mantell  finished  his  lines  and  went  off  for 
a  few  moments,  inwardly  boiling,  but  out- 
wardly calm.  He  quietly  warned  the  crew 
that  somebody  would  get  badly  hurt  if  they 
didn't  stop  their  cowardly  attempts  to  spoil 
his  chances  of  making  good  with  the  audi- 
ence. As  he  re-entered  the  scene,  he  heard 
the  men  laugh  derisively. 

The  actor  walked  on  all  alert  for  the  next 
move  of  the  enemy,  but,  so  far  as  the  audi- 
ence could  notice,  absorbed  in  his  impersona- 
tion of  Richard.  There  was  a  clatter  of 
stage  braces  f ailing  to  the  floor.  Then  Man- 
tell  noticed  a  hand  feeling  along  the  drop 
to  locate  him.  He  turned  half  round,  with 
one  side  toward  the  drop  and  the  other 
toward  the  audience,  and  drew  his  dagger, 
making  the  action  fit  into  his  lines  with  the 
resourcefulness  of  the  long  training  that 
playing  in  repertoire  gives.  He  held  the 
dagger  so  that  his  body  concealed  it  from 
the  audience,  and  waited. 

He  saw  the  form  of  the  man  back  scenes 
print  itself  against  the  drop,  preparing,  as 


184     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

he  rightly  guessed,  for  a  powerful  lunge 
forward  calculated  to  send  the  actor  head- 
long into  the  orchestra  pit. 

With  a  quick,  strong  thrust,  Mantell 
drove  his  dagger  through  the  curtain. 
There  was  a  cry  of  pain,  stifled,  however, 
by  an  instinct  for  silence  in  a  theatre  —  an 
instinct  that  was  stronger  than  the  man's 
evil  mind.  Mantell  felt  the  flesh  draw  itself 
off  the  dagger  point,  and  heard  the  fellow 
stagger  and  fall  into  the  arms  of  his  com- 
panions, and  then  all  was  quiet. 

The  audience  had  been  slightly  startled 
by  the  cry,  but,  believing  evidently  that  it 
had  been  some  sort  of  "business"  back  of 
the  scenes,  paid  no  more  attention  to  it. 
Mantell  finished  the  act  without  further 
interruption,  and  walked  off  as  the  curtain 
dropped. 

He  was  met  in  the  wings  by  the  ringleader 
of  the  gang. 

"Here,  you,"  blustered  the  fellow  brut- 
ally, "d'you  know  you've  killed  a  man?" 

"I  hope  to  God  I  have,"  answered  Man- 
tell  with  furious  fervency.  He  glanced  at 
his  victim,  who  was  lying  at  the  rear  of  the 
stage  on  a  carpet  thrown  across  a  couple  of 
wardrobe  trunks.  The  fellow  had  a  bad 
wound  in  his  leg,  and  was  groaning  feebly. 

"Here,  Hammy,"  said  the  actor,  turning 
to  his  valet.  "Run  like  a  good  boy  to  my 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     185 

dressing  room  and  get  that  glove  I  use  in 
the  last  act." 

The  excited  valet  was  away,  and  back 
in  a  moment. 

"Now  take  a  good  look  at  this  gauntlet," 
said  Mantell  to  the  crew.  "It  is  studded 
with  iron.  I'm  a  strong  man,  and  with  a 
blow  of  this  glove  I  can  fell  an  ox.  I'm 
going  to  wear  this  through  the  rest  of  the 
play.  If  there's  the  least  disturbance  back 
here  when  I'm  on  the  stage,  I'll  walk  off 
instantly,  and  I'll  brain  the  man  that's 
making  it." 

How  the  ghost  of  Heffernan  must  have 
laughed  if  he  was  among  the  dead  tragedians 
looking  on! 

Never  in  his  career  did  Mantell  act  on  a 
quieter  stage  than  after  that  little  speech. 
Nor  ever  did  he  play  with  more  fire.  The 
wrath  engendered  by  his  fight  with  the  crew 
was  converted  into  dramatic  fury.  He  lit- 
erally electrified  his  little  audience.  The 
dramatic  critics  who  had  strolled  in  "  to  kill 
an  evening  "  felt  the  blood  leap  through  their 
veins  with  a  bound  whose  thrjll  they  had  al- 
most forgotten  in  the  long  absence  of  great 
tragic  acting  from  the  New  York  stage. 
They  went  back  to  their  desks  and  wrote 
fervently  of  what  they  had  seen  and  heard. 
Even  Alan  Dale,  most  caustic  of  reviewers, 
forgot  to  let  loose  the  vials  of  his  vitriolitic 


186     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

humor,  which  might  readily  have  been 
spread  in  generous  measure  over  scenery 
and  supporting  company.  The  most  dreaded 
of  critics  was  even  more  lavish  in  his  praise 
than  his  fellows. 

The  result  was  that  playgoers  forgot  that 
it  was  the  holiday  season.  They  climbed 
the  steps  of  the  Princess  to  see  again  such 
acting  as  had  not  been  witnessed  since  the 
death  of  Booth. 

Mantell  quickly  followed  up  his  success 
as  Richard  with  a  performance  of  "Othello," 
in  which  he  scored  another  triumph  of 
almost  equal  strength.  Yes,  here  was  a 
great  tragedian  —  Mantell  had  "come 
back." 

William  A.  Brady,  who  long  before  had 
met  the  young  Orlando  at  Asbury  Park, 
was  now  an  important  factor  in  New  York 
theatricals.  He  was  among  those  who 
climbed  the  steps  at  the  Princess.  He  saw 
what  further  dignity  it  would  lend  to  his 
position  in  stage  affairs  to  become  manager 
of  the  foremost  classic  star  of  his  genera- 
tion. He  realized,  too,  that  Mantell  could 
be  made  to  turn  a  handsome  profit  if  sur- 
rounded by  the  right  sort  of  company  and 
given  the  right  sort  of  scenic  productions. 

Brady  opened  negotiations  with  the  star, 
who  was  receiving  offers  at  the  same  time 
from  nearly  everybody  of  consequence  in 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     187 

the  New  York  managerial  field.  Mantell's 
contract  with  Zoellner  would  expire  Febru- 
ary 4, 1905.  He  signed  a  new  contract  with 
Brady  to  go  into  effect  February  6. 

From  the  moment  of  his  triumphal  re- 
entry into  New  York  on  that  night  of 
December  5,  1904,  Robert  Mantell's  for- 
tunes have  steadily  improved,  and  his 
fame  as  America's  leading  classic  actor  has 
become  firmly  established.  The  long 
struggle  for  recognition  as  an  artist  is  over. 
With  this  recognition  have  come  the  material 
comforts  that  grateful  theatregoers  shower 
upon  their  favorites  through  the  contribu- 
tion of  their  mites  at  the  box  office. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

In  Which,  as  King  Lear,  Robert  Mantell 
Takes  a  Place  in  the  Stage  History  of  All 
Time. 

IMMEDIATELY  after  his  contract  with 
Mantell  went  into  effect,  Brady  started 
with  his  characteristic  zeal  to  develop 
his  new  star.    He  arranged  a  short 
"stock"  season  at  the  Alvin  Theatre,  Pitts- 
burgh. There  he  and  Mantell  began  vigor- 
ously to  overhaul  the  company  and  thus 
improve  the  support  of  the  star  that  had 
been  so  sadly  lacking  in  New  York.   Marie 
Booth  Russell,  leading  woman,  and  Harry 
Keefer,  stage  manager,  were  retained. 

The  first  week,  Mantell  played  "  Richard 
III"  twice  a  day,  and  he  and  Brady  re- 
hearsed the  company  every  day  besides. 
The  second  week,  the  bill  was  "Richelieu," 
also  twice  a  day,  and  with  the  daily  re- 
hearsals. The  third  week  it  was  "Othello," 
with  the  same  vigorous  proceedings,  and 
the  fourth  week  "Hamlet."  The  fifth  week, 
"The  Corsican  Brothers"  was  tried.  The 
receipts  fell  to  one-half.  Mantell  was 
wanted  as  a  classic  star  —  his  romantic 
days  were  over. 

188 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     189 

On  March  27,  Mantell  started  on  tour 
at  the  head  of  the  company  he  and  Brady 
had  reorganized.  But  the  season  was  too 
near  an  end  to  attempt  anything  out  of  the 
ordinary.  An  invasion  of  Chicago,  however, 
was  tried,  with  financial  disappointment. 
The  Iroquois  Theatre  had  just  been  rebuilt 
after  the  fire  so  dreadful  in  the  theatrical 
annals  of  America,  and  to  Mantell  was 
assigned  the  task  of  rededicating  it.  He 
was  the  first  star  of  consequence  to  go 
into  the  reconstructed  playhouse.  Chi- 
cago stayed  away. 

Mantell  and  Brady,  however,  seized  the 
opportunity  of  the  engagement  in  Chicago 
to  go  through  with  some  more  vigorous 
rehearsals.  One  day  they  were  overhauling 
"Richard  III."  Mantell  became  thoroughly 
tired  out.  Brady  told  him  to  go  to  his  hotel 
and  "take  a  nap"  before  the  night  per- 
formance. He  then  proceeded  to  rehearse 
the  company  alone. 

In  the  wings  stood  two  "supers." 

"Who  is  that  guy?"  asked  one  of  them, 
in  a  low  voice,  with  a  nod  of  his  head  in 
Brady's  direction. 

"Hush!  That's  the  author,"  said  the 
other. 

At  the  close  of  the  brief  spring  tour, 
Mantell  retired  to  Atlantic  Highlands,  where 
he  spent  the  busiest  summer  of  his  career 


190     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

in  the  hard  study  of  new  roles.  Brady  had 
put  new  life  into  him.  The  future  looked 
bright  again. 

On  the  night  of  October  23, 1905,  Mantell 
opened  at  the  Garden  Theatre,  New  York, 
an  engagement  that,  for  artistic  achieve- 
ment, has  never  been  duplicated  in  the 
history  of  the  American  stage.  The  engage- 
ment started  with  "Richard  III,"  which 
Mantell  now  regarded  as  his  mascot,  and 
he  depended  on  Richard  to  overcome  a 
"hoodoo"  that  was  reputed  to  hang  over 
the  Garden.  The  wittily  malevolent  hunch- 
back —  partly,  perhaps,  because  of  the 
hump,  if  you  are  superstitious  in  that  di- 
rection —  was  partially  successful  so  far  as 
finances  were  concerned,  for  he  made  pos- 
sible an  eight  weeks'  stay.  When  it  came 
to  artistic  recognition,  he  proved  an  amulet 
of  superlative  power. 

The  first  of  the  novelties  of  this  red- 
letter  engagement  at  the  Garden  was  "  Mac- 
beth," presented  the  night  of  November 
13.  It  was  the  first  time  Mantell  had 
played  the  Thane  since  the  memorable 
night  in  Hull  twenty-three  years  before, 
when  he  had  bade  good-bye  to  the  gypsy 
stage  queen,  Marie  De  Grey.  "Macbeth" 
was  praised  by  the  critics,  who  were  watch- 
ing with  interest  the  development  of  the  new 
classic  star.  It  was  easily  the  best  Macbeth 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     191 

in  elocution  since  Booth's,  and  it  surpassed 
Booth's  from  the  physical  standpoint. 

But  the  success  of  Cawdor  was  swallowed 
up  two  weeks  later  by  an  amazing  triumph 
in  "King  Lear"  —  a  triumph  that  is  re- 
newed every  time  Mantell  plays  the  mad 
old  monarch,  the  one  creation  of  Shake- 
speare which  puts  the  Elizabethan  drama- 
tist, in  spite  of  Tolstoi's  opinion,  on  a  par 
of  sublimity  with  the  tragedians  of  the 
golden  age  of  Greece. 

Mantell's  King  Lear,  taken  all  in  all,  is 
his  masterwork.  There  is  a  tremendous 
force  of  genius  in  it  that  never  fails  to  stun 
the  onlooker.  However  blase  the  theatre- 
goer may  be  —  however  he  may  despise  or 
affect  to  despise  the  elocutionary  art  of 
Shakespeare  in  this  age  of  stage  realism, 
he  cannot  sit  in  the  theatre  when  Mantell 
is  playing  Lear  without  being  caught  in  the 
cyclonic  swirl  of  tragic  emotion. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  see  an  extraor- 
dinary performance  of  this  masterpiece  of 
world  tragedy,  which  I  remember  as  the 
most  vividly  magnetic  experience  in  a 
somewhat  extended  career  as  a  professional 
witnesser  of  plays.  It  was  on  the  night  of 
January  27,  1913,  the  opening  night  of 
Mantell's  first  engagement  in  Boston  in 
seven  years. 

Mantell  had  shunned  the  center  of  New 


192     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

England  culture.  He  had  been  treated 
unmercifully  on  his  last  previous  visit. 
The  critics  had  vied  with  each  other  then 
in  the  art  of  vivisection.  They  had  found 
every  imaginable  fault  with  his  company 
and  his  productions,  and  had  concluded 
that  "besides"  Mantell  himself  was  a 
"ham-actor"  and  "barnstormer."  The  few 
playgoers  who  attended  the  performances 
throughout  the  fortnight  of  fusillade  scarcely 
dared  raise  a  dissenting  voice  against  the 
consensus  of  opinion  of  the  learned  gentle- 
men of  the  press,  and  the  engagement  was  a 
miserable  failure,  artistically  and  financially. 

Mantell  didn't  forget  the  experience. 
Whenever  he  saw  Boston  on  his  route  sheet 
he  felt  even  his  tough  courage  ooze.  So 
much  of  it  would  seep  away  as  the  time 
approached  to  fill  the  date  that  he  would 
end  up  by  seeking  and  finding  an  excuse 
for  cancelling  the  engagement.  It  was  the 
only  city  in  America  he  feared.  All  the 
others  he  had  conquered. 

But,  in  1913,  he  screwed  his  courage  to 
the  sticking  point.  I  was  his  press  agent 
at  the  time.  In  Buffalo,  a  few  weeks  before 
the  Boston  engagement,  he  confessed  to  me 
his  fears,  and  we  laid  plans  for  a  campaign 
of  publicity  to  be  wholly  legitimate  and 
dignified,  so  as  to  give  the  critics  no  open- 
ing for  charges  of  sensationalism. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     193 

Mantell  began  his  engagement  with 
"King  Lear."  I  saw  him  a  few  minutes 
before  the  curtain  went  up,  and  he  had  the 
bull-dog  look  he  always  wears  when  he 
means  to  conquer.  When  he  walked  on 
the  stage  he  flashed  into  his  audience  that 
indescribable  broadside  of  magnetism  al- 
ways radiated  by  a  player  of  genius,  but 
hi  this  instance  a  dozen  times  stronger  than 
I  had  ever  felt  it  before.  The  audience  was 
caught  instantly. 

"I  felt  a  return  flash,"  Mr.  Mantell 
afterwards  told  me,  "and  I  realized  I  had 
them." 

He  not  only  caught  them,  but  he  kept 
them.  The  audience  appeared  fascinated. 
Their  eyes  followed  his  every  movement, 
and  their  ears  drank  in  every  note  of  his 
voice. 

When  the  curtain  closed  on  the  curse 
scene,  the  audience  appeared  stunned. 
Every  swish  of  the  velvet  could  be  heard. 
Then,  there  burst  forth  a  thunder-clap  of 
applause,  which  lengthened  into  a  long 
roar.  Somebody  down  front  leaped  to  his 
feet  and  yelled,  "Bravo!"  Voices  all  over 
the  house  caught  up  the  cry.  Spectators 
everywhere  sprang  to  their  feet.  Handker- 
chiefs were  waved  in  the  air.  Mantell,  or 
rather  King  Lear  —  for  the  tragedian  did 
not  step  out  of  character  —  appeared  time 


194     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

and  time  again  from  between  the  folds  of 
the  velvet. 

In  a  quarter  of  a  century  cultured  Boston 
had  never  so  lost  its  head.  Booth  and 
Irving  had  never  inspired  such  an  ovation. 
Brady  wired  congratulations  to  his  star. 
"You  have  conquered,  and  opened  up  a 
new  domain  for  yourself,"  he  said. 

The  electrical  effect  of  that  night  per- 
sisted throughout  the  two  weeks  of  the 
engagement.  Night  after  night  the  crowds 
gave  vent  to  their  enthusiasm.  Boston,  the 
last  American  city  to  be  conquered  by  the 
tragedian,  was  the  most  completely  sub- 
dued. Mantell,  forgotten  in  the  seven 
years  of  absence,  burst  upon  the  city  in  the 
very  height  of  the  glow  of  his  genius.  To 
Boston  theatregoers  he  was  a  brilliant 
discovery  —  a  discovery  of  their  very  own. 

From  Boston,  his  fame  spread  through 
New  England.  The  tour  was  altered  and 
rearranged  to  include  all  the  important 
Puritan  cities.  Mantell  enjoyed  a  triumph, 
financial  and  artistic,  never  before  accorded 
a  classic  tragedian  in  that  section  of  the 
United  States. 

But  I  have  wandered  nearly  a  decade 
beyond  the  first  night  of  "King  Lear"  in 
New  York.  The  critics  and  Shakespearean 
scholars  shook  their  heads  dubiously  when 
Mantell  announced  a  revival  of  "Lear." 


LEAR  AND  THE  DEAD  CORDELIA 
Mr.  Mantel!  and  Miss  Hamper 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     105 

Had  not  Charles  Lamb,  keen  critic  of 
literature  and  of  the  stage,  pronounced  the 
tragedy  unactable?  Had  not  the  experience 
of  three  centuries  pretty  nearly  borne  out 
this  estimate? 

Richard  Burbage,  that  giant  of  the 
Elizabethan  stage  who  created  all  the  tragic 
heroes  of  his  fellow-actor,  Will  Shakespeare, 
played  the  part  —  perhaps  well  —  maybe 
ill.  We  have  nothing  about  him  except  a 
glowing  epitaph,  and  epitaphs  are  not  to  be 
trusted.  David  Garrick,  the  John  the 
Baptist  of  stage  naturalism,  shone  lumi- 
nously in  the  role.  Spranger  Barry  was  his 
rival.  Of  Barry  the  makers  of  epigram  said 
after  they  saw  him  as  Lear:  "He  was  every 
inch  a  king."  After  they  saw  Garrick  they 
said,  "He  was  every  inch  King  Lear." 
Edwin  Forrest  on  this  side  the  Atlantic  is 
reputed  a  magnificent  Lear.  He,  in  his  day, 
was*  the  American  Garrick  of  the  role; 
Edwin  Booth  was  the  Barry.  In  all  other 
creations  where  they  clashed,  Booth  was 
the  Garrick  and  Forrest  the  Barry. 

Burbage,  Garrick,  Forrest  —  where  in 
the  three  centuries  was  there  to  be  found 
another  tremendously  great  Lear,  even  if 
Burbage  can  be  counted?  All  of  the  older 
tragedians  had  tried  the  part,  and  all  had 
encountered  insurmountable  obstacles,  ex- 
cept Garrick  and  Forrest  and  perhaps 


196     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Burbage.  All  had  been  forced  to  reveal 
their  tragic  limitations  in  their  attempt  to 
interpret  the  most  sublime  drama  ever 
conceived  by  the  brain  of  man. 

No  tragedian  of  consequence  had  at- 
tempted Lear  in  America  since  Booth. 
When  Mantell  announced  his  revival,  it  is 
no  wonder  the  Shakespearean  scholars  shook 
their  heads  dubiously.  The  majority  of 
playgoers,  too,  shook  their  heads  —  not  so 
much  dubiously  as  vaguely.  They  had  never 
heard  of  King  Lear. 

Curiosity  of  one  sort  or  another  brought 
two  or  three  hundred  playgoers  to  the 
Garden  on  the  night  of  November  27, 1905. 
This  little  audience  was  first  attentive,  then 
amazed,  then  astounded,  then  enraptured. 

The  next  morning  William  Winter,  the 
veteran  critic  of  the  New  York  Tribune  — 
the  personal  friend  of  Forrest,  Booth  and 
Irving  —  the  most  authoritative  of  all 
American  reviewers  in  the  field  of  classic 
acting  —  proclaimed  Robert  Bruce  Mantell 
"the  leader  of  our  stage."  New  York 
critics,  in  general,  agreed  with  Mr.  Winter, 
and  it  was  as  the  formally  acknowledged 
"leader  of  the  stage"  that  Mantell  entered 
upon  a  career  of  financial  prosperity  in  the 
classics  seldom  duplicated  in  history. 

So  great  is  Mantell's  Lear,  that  no  other 
actor  has  dared  enter  into  rivalry  with  him, 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     197 

although  his  financial  success  in  the  part  has 
been  tempting.  Others  have  tried  Othello 
and  Macbeth  and  Shylock  and  Richelieu, 
but  they  have  left  Lear  alone.  Mantell 
must  be  considered  the  greatest  Lear  of 
his  time  —  the  greatest  potentially,  as  well 
as  the  only  one  actually  revealed.  For  in 
these  days  of  keen  competition,  another 
great  Lear  would  scarcely  be  content  to  lie 
dormant. 

How  does  Mantell  compare  with  Forrest 
and  Garrick  and  Burbage?  There  is  no  way 
of  determining  absolutely.  When  the  actor 
dies,  his  art,  unfortunately,  vanishes  from 
the  world.  All  that  is  left  is  the  memory  of 
it,  and  this  memory  grows  more  and  more 
hazy  as  the  years  glide  away.  Then,  when 
they  who  saw  him  are  dead,  all  that  remains 
is  a  written  record  of  a  few  impressions, 
incomplete,  inadequate,  perhaps  inaccurate. 
We  are  positive  of  the  superb  genius  of 
Phidias,  for  we  read  it  in  his  marbles  almost 
as  readily  as  did  his  contemporaries,  who 
had  only  the  advantage  over  us  of  appreci- 
ating a  certain  symbolism  now  lost.  The 
soul  of  Raphael  lives  in  his  marvelous 
colors.  The  baton  of  the  orchestra  leader 
can  call  forth  the  ghost  of  Beethoven  from 
his  tomb. 

But    what    do    we    know    of    Garrick? 
Walpole  and  Gray  tell  us  something  of  his 


198     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

methods,  but  who  will  show  us  how  he  played 
the  storm  scene  in  Lear?  He  enraptured 
the  audiences  of  his  day,  but  would  he  be 
tolerated  by  an  audience  that  has  seen 
Irving? 

Burbage  is  still  more  shadowy.  He  is  but 
the  ghost  of  a  ghost.  Of  him  we  know 
nothing. 

Many  of  the  older  playgoers  now  living 
saw,  in  their  youth,  Forrest  in  his  prime. 
One  of  them,  Prof.  H.  H.  Hay  of  Girard 
College,  Philadelphia,  a  profound  student 
of  Shakespeare  and  of  the  stage,  tells  me 
Mantell  is  decidedly  Forrest's  superior. 
He  says  Mantell  has  the  physical  qualities 
so  admired  in  Forrest,  and,  in  addition,  a 
spiritual  touch  Forrest  could  never  attain 
—  a  touch  more  after  the  manner  of  Booth. 
On  the  other  hand,  William  Winter,  three 
or  four  years  before  his  death,  lamented, 
though  without  special  reference  to  Mantell, 
that  there  was  no  great  character  interpreta- 
tion then  visible  that  compared  with  Booth's 
Hamlet  or  Forrest's  Lear. 

Who  shall  decide?  A  long  time  has 
elapsed  since  Forrest  was  in  his  prime. 
The  power  of  artistic  appreciation  in  a  man 
and  the  standard  of  appreciation  change 
like  everything  else.  Professor  Hay  may 
have  found  something  in  Forrest's  interpre- 
tation that  jarred  on  his  own  theory  of  what 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     199 

Lear  ought  to  be,  as  seen  with  the  eyes  of 
youth.  It  may  be  that  Mantell  interprets 
to  him  now  the  philosophy  that  maturity 
had  discovered  in  the  old  man  of  sorrows. 
Or  it  is  possible  Mr.  Winter,  in  his  younger 
days,  was  fascinated  by  the  terrible  force 
of  Forrest  that  would  not  have  appealed 
to  him  in  maturity.  Maybe  fancy  wove, 
after  long  years,  one  of  her  golden  haloes 
around  a  memory  that  was  becoming  ever 
more  and  more  dreamy. 

But  even  if  we  could  decide  between 
Mantell  and  Forrest,  what  power  would 
enable  us  to  determine  the  precedence  in 
the  case  of  Forrest  and  Garrick  or  Garrick 
and  Burbage?  In  view  of  the  difficulty, 
it  is  perhaps  best  to  expand  the  trio  of  great 
Lears  into  a  quartet  —  Burbage,  Garrick, 
Forrest,  Mantell. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

An  Interlude  of  Anecdote,  Being  the  Least 
Important  and  Perhaps  the  Most  Inter- 
esting Chapter  of  the  Entire  Volume. 

APROPOS  of  nothing,  and  somewhat 
after    the    manner    of    the    genial 
author  of  "Don  Quixote,"  let  me 
interrupt  my  narrative  to  insert  an 
episode  or  two,  for  which  I  have  found  no 
place,  but  which,  I  assure  you,  will  be  worth 
the  reading. 

Little  is  known  positively  of  the  descent 
of  George  Bird,  who,  for  a  time,  was  travel- 
ing manager  with  Mantell.  But  if  he  num- 
bered either  Ananias  or  Baron  Munchausen 
among  the  roots  of  his  family  tree,  he  came 
honestly  by  a  propensity  to  romance.  Man- 
tell  never  attached  any  blame  to  him. 
Romancing  was  as  much  a  part  of  him  as  his 
little  finger. 

Bird  said  he  used  to  be  a  ballet  master 
in  London,  but  when  Mantell  wanted  to 
introduce  a  few  simple  steps  into  one  of  his 
productions  and  asked  Bird  to  coach  his 
people,  the  former  ballet  master  found  him- 
self hopelessly  puzzled.  He  observed  with 

200 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     201 

melancholy  regret  that  "the  cunning  had 
left  him."' 

The  only  literal  truth  in  which  Mantell 
remembers  detecting  him  was  a  statement 
that  he  had  once  been  a  sailor.  The  con- 
firmation came  when  a  small  fire  started 
one  night  in  the  rigging  loft.  Bird,  with 
the  experienced  agility  that  comes  only  to  a 
sailor,  quickly  clambered  up  the  scenery, 
cut  the  ropes  and  let  fall  the  burning 
drapery. 

On  one  occasion,  however,  Bird's  former 
seamanship  led  him  into  an  "error"  that 
was  characteristic.  In  the  company  was 
an  actor  named  Sanderson  who  scorned  to 
lie  by  word  of  mouth,  but  who  converted 
the  piano  into  an  instrument  of  prevarica- 
tion. Sanderson  would  bang  away  at  the 
keys  with  all  tjie  seriousness  and  confidence 
of  a  Paderewski.  It  was  not  unusual  for 
him  to  persuade  his  hearers  with  slight 
musical  education  that  he  was  a  master 
pianist. 

One  night,  Bird  and  Sanderson  were 
thrown  together  with  Mantell  and  several 
other  professionals  in  the  parlor  of  "Policy 
Bill"  Smith,  of  Cincinnati,  who  was  fond 
of  entertaining  stage  people.  Sanderson 
drifted  inevitably  to  the  piano.  He  struck 
a  rumbling,  thundering  chord,  and  an- 
nounced he  would  sing  "The  Wreck  of  the 


202     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Hesperus"    to    a    musical    setting    of    his 
own. 

It  was  the  schooner  Hesperus, 
That  sailed  the  wintry  sea; 

Bird's  attention  was  riveted  immediately. 
Here  was  a  tale  of  his  beloved  ocean. 

And  the  skipper  had  taken  his  little  daughter, 
To  bear  him  company. 

Sanderson's  voice  grew  plaintive  and  ten- 
der. He  chorded  away  at  the  piano  with 
an  air  of  supreme  mastery. 

Blue  were  her  eyes  as  the  fairy-flax, 

Her  cheeks  like  the  dawn  of  day, 
And  her  bosom  white  as  the  hawthorn  buds, 

That  ope  in  the  month  of  May. 

Bird's  eyes  grew  moist  and  misty.  Sander- 
son, glancing  around  at  all  his  hearers,  as 
was  his  custom  when  playing,  to  note  the 
effect,  saw  he  had  charmed  Bird.  He  went 
on  to  tell  of  the  warning  of  the  "old  sailor, 
had  sailed  the  Spanish  main,"  and  of  the 
skipper's  scornful  laugh,  throwing  a  realis- 
tic ripple  into  his  "musical  setting"  to 
indicate  the  sinister  mirth.  Another  glance 
at  Bird.  He  was  eagerly  eating  the  words 
and  drinking  in  the  music. 

Colder  and  louder  blew  the  wind, 
A  gale  from  the  northeast, 

Sanderson  was  in  his  element  now.  His 
voice  became  a  deep  bass,  and  he  struck 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     203 

every  low  rumbling  tone  of  which  the  piano 
was  capable.  He  fairly  squirmed  in  his 
ecstacy. 

The  snow  fell  hissing  in  the  brine, 
And  the  billows  frothed  like  yeast. 

Again  a  glance  at  Bird.  Sanderson  was 
playing  to  nobody  else  now.  Here  was  an 
"audience"  worth  while.  This  ex-sailor 
could  appreciate  more  keenly  than  an 
entire  assembly  of  landsmen.  Had  he  not 
himself  been  sometime  in  a  storm  at  sea? 
Was  not  there  flitting  through  his  mind, 
realistically  conjured  up  by  the  magic  of 
Sanderson's  music,  a  feverish  throng  of 
actual  memories  of  the  deep? 

Down  came  the  storm,  and  smote  amain 
The  vessel  in  its  strength; 

The  very  roof  of  the  house  shook  to  the 
thunder  of  the  piano. 

She  shuddered  and  paused,  like  a  frighted  steed, 
Then  leaped  her  cable's  length. 

Bird's  heart  leaped  to  the  music.  Sander- 
son saw  it  in  his  face.  The  rest  of  the  com- 
pany noticed  it  now,  and  they,  too,  began 
watching  Bird.  Sanderson's  performance 
was  amusing  enough,  but  the  fun  was  now 
doubled  in  watching  the  response  of  his 
victim,  who  followed  him  as  a  sparrow  does 
a  snake. 

Sanderson  went  on  through  the  recital 


204     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

of  the  terrors  of  that  night  of  storm  and 
darkness  and  death.  Old  Timotheus  at  the 
feast  of  Alexander  found  no  more  fascinated 
auditor  in  the  conqueror  of  the  world  than 
did  this  actor  at  the  piano  in  the  ex-sailor. 
Then: 

At  daybreak,  on  the  bleak  sea-beach, 

A  fisherman  stood  aghast, 
To  see  the  form  of  a  maiden  fair, 

Lashed  close  to  a  drifting  mast. 

How  wonderfully  tender  the  tone!  Great 
tears  stood  in  Bird's  eyes. 

The  salt  sea  was  frozen  on  her  breast, 

The  salt  tears  in  her  eyes; 
And  he  saw  her  hah",  like  the  brown  sea-weed, 

On  the  billows  fall  and  rise. 

Bird  broke  down  completely,  and  sobbed 
like  a  child.  It  was  a  mighty  triumph  for 
Sanderson.  If  his  setting  for  "The  Wreck  of 
the  Hesperus"  could  so  stir  a  human  heart, 
was  it  not  a  masterpiece?  Was  not  his  fame 
as  a  composer  assured? 

Into  the  last  stanza  now  he  threw  what 
seemed  to  him  incredible  awe  and  reverence: 

Such  was  the  wreck  of  the  Hesperus, 
In  the  midnight  and  the  snow! 

Christ  save  us  all  from  a  death  like  this, 
On  the  reef  of  Norman's  Woe! 

Bird's  sobbings  were  gentler  now  under 
the  soothing  influence,  but  his  frame  was 
still  shaking  convulsively.  Sanderson  got 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     205 

up  from  the  piano,  and  walked  over  to  the 
victim  of  his  musical  magic. 

"There!  There!"  he  said,  slapping  him 
kindly  on  the  back.  "Cheer  up,  old  man, 
the  mood  will  pass!" 

"It  isn't  the  mood,"  answered  Bird,  "but 
a  terrible  memory.  I  was  in  that  wreck, 
and  you  recalled  vividly  to  me  all  the 
horrible  details.  It  was  frightful.  Oh!  Oh! 
That  poor  girl!  When  she  was  cast  up  on 
the  beach,  I  saw  the  sea  gulls  picking  out 
her  eyes.  Oh,  it  was  horrible!  Oh!  Oh!" 

This  man  Sanderson,  besides  being  so 
excellent  a  musician,  deserves  a  place  in 
the  hall  of  fame  as  the  champion  "pass 
grafter"  of  the  world.  He  employed  every 
conceivable  argument  and  excuse  for  getting 
free  tickets  for  his  friends. 

Illness  at  last  forced  him  to  leave  Man- 
telFs  company.  He  was  confined  to  a  hos- 
pital in  New  York  when  the  tragedian  was 
filling  an  engagement  there.  Every  day  he 
sent  to  his  former  employer  and  friend  a 
request  for  passes  for  somebody  —  a  com- 
rade had  kindly  dropped  in  to  see  him,  a 
doctor  had  relieved  a  tormenting  pain,  a 
nurse  had  gone  out  of  the  routine  of  her 
duties  to  do  him  a  special  favor.  All  such 
requests  were  honored. 

Finally,  one  day,  poor  Sanderson  sent 
Mantell  a  letter  that  he  was  near  death's 


206     ROBERT  MANTEIX'S  ROMANCE 

door.  He  would  never  get  up  again.  He 
had  forgiven  all  his  enemies,  and  had 
thought  gratefully  again  of  all  the  kind- 
nesses of  his  friends.  At  his  request  an 
undertaker  had  been  to  see  him.  He  was  a 
splendid  fellow  and  sympathetic.  Wouldn't 
Mr.  Mantell,  for  old  time's  sake,  send 
him  a  couple  of  seats  for  the  under- 
taker? 

Such  a  request  could  not  be  refused. 
The  passes  were  the  last  Sanderson  ever 
asked  for.  Mantell,  by  chance,  met  the 
undertaker  afterward  —  after  the  poor  actor 
had  been  laid  to  rest.  The  undertaker 
thanked  the  tragedian  for  the  passes,  and 
assured  him  he  had  taken  special  pains 
with  all  that  was  left  of  poor  old  Sanderson. 
But  Bird  is  too  precious  to  lose  in  the 
grave  with  Sanderson. 

Once  the  Mantell  Company  was  riding 
in  their  special  car  across  the  boundless 
plains  of  the  far  West.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Man- 
tell  were  sitting  toward  the  rear  of  the  car. 
Bird  was  a  few  seats  ahead.  The  setting 
sun  shone  on  the  manager's  face,  giving  it 
a  sort  of  copper  tinge.  An  idea  struck  the 
tragedian. 

"I'll  bet  a  dollar,"  he  said  suddenly  to 
Marie  Booth  Russell,  "that  I  can  make 
George  say  he  is  part  Indian. " 

Mrs.  Mantell  took  the  bet,  more  for  the 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     207 

sake  of  the  sport  than  from  any  idea  of 
winning. 

Mr.  Mantell  walked  up  the  aisle  of  the 
car  to  where  Bird  was  sitting. 

"Pardon  me,  George,'*  he  said,  "for 
putting  a  delicate  question,  but  when  Mrs. 
Mantell  and  I  sat  back  there  watching  the 
setting  sun  play  on  your  face,  I  noted  some- 
thing in  the  lines  of  your  cheek  and  nose  — 
something  noble  —  that  suggested  —  pardon 
me  —  suggested  you  might  have  Indian 
blood  in  you.  If  it  isn't  indiscreet,  may  I 
ask  if  my  impression  was  right?" 

"Governor,"  answered  Bird,  solemnly, 
"you  are  the  first  person  in  the  company 
who  has  noticed  that.  Yes,"  effusively,  "I 
have.  I  am  related  to  Chief  Falling  Water, 
who  is  a  direct  descendant  of  Pocahontas." 

Bird  was  given  one  of  the  four  twenty- 
five-cent  cigars  Mantell  bought  with  the 
dollar  Marie  Booth  Russell  paid  him. 

One  night  Bird,  whose  proper  place  was 
in  the  front  of  the  house  at  the  door  or  the 
box-office,  happened  to  be  back  on  the 
stage  in  the  wings  during  the  first  act  of 
"Hamlet."  The  Prince  had  just  en- 
countered his  father's  ghost  alone,  and  the 
spirit  had  vanished  at  the  first  sniff  of 
dawn. 

"Hfflo!"  shouted  Hamlet,  "ho,  ho,  boy! 
Come,  bird,  come!" 


208     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

"Did  you  call  me,  Governor?"  said  Bird, 
blithely,  stepping  out  from  the  wings,  "  here 
I  am,  what's  wrong?" 

"Get  off,  you  damned  fool,"  savagely 
muttered  the  melancholy  Dane. 

Mantell's  first  and  second  meetings  with 
Beerbohm  Tree  —  afterwards  Sir  Herbert 
—  have  in  them  a  good  story.  The  first 
occurred  while  Mantell  was  playing  with 
Miss  Wallis  in  London.  Neither  he  nor 
Tree  was  so  famous  as  they  afterward 
became,  but  Tree  then  had  something  of 
an  advantage. 

"As  I  wanted  to  have  my  costume  for  a 
new  part  historically  correct,"  said  Man- 
tell,  in  relating  the  story,  "I  went  to 
Godwin,  the  designer,  who  did  all  the  work 
for  Irving  at  the  Lyceum.  He  was  the  big 
man  in  that  line  —  just  as  Alma  Tadema 
designed  the  settings  for  all  the  productions 
that  they  might  be  correct.  Godwin  made 
me  the  costume  plates  for  Orlando,  and  for 
Romeo  and  two  or  three  other  parts  I  con- 
templated doing.  He  charged  me  $20  for 
each  of  them,  which  was  a  pretty  stiff 
price.  It  put  quite  a  crimp  in  my  bank  roll, 
never  so  bulky  then,  but  I  felt  rewarded 
when  he  invited  me  to  lunch  with  him  at 
the  Victoria  Club. 

"  *I  want  you  to  meet  Beerbohm  Tree,' 
he  said,  *  charming  fellow  —  awfully  clever 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     209 

actor  —  one  of  our  coming  men  on  the  stage.* 

"Of  course,  I  was  all  puffed  up  at  the 
idea  of  lunching  with  the  talked-about 
people  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  I 
accepted  in  a  hurry.  It  was  a  great  luncheon 
-  private  dining  room  at  the  club,  you 
know,  wine  with  every  course  and  all  the 
trimmings.  We  talked  about  art  and  the 
future  of  the  stage,  and  when  we  were 
through  Godwin  called  for  the  check.  He 
looked  at  it. 

"  *  Oh,  only  nine  pounds  ten  and  six. 
Very  reasonable  indeed  —  very  reasonable.' 

"Then  he  began  feeling  in  his  pockets  — 
inside,  outside,  everywhere. 

"'  Bless  my  soul  —  where's  my  purse? 
Most  extraordinary  —  why  —  I  don't  think 
I've  got  a  bit  of  money  about  me.  I  say, 
Tree,  old  man,  have  you  got  a  tener  with 
you?' 

"Tree  waked  up  and  began  digging. 

"  'A  tener?  Why,  certainly,  old  chap, 
of  course.' 

"He  pulled  out  a  lonely  looking  shilling. 

"  *  What's  this?  A  shilling?   My  word  - 
where  is  that  ten-pound  Bank  of  England 
note  —  I  certainly  remember  putting  one 
in  here.' 

"There  they  were,  both  fingering  through 
their  pockets,  and  I  sought  to  relieve  their 
embarrassment. 


210     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

'If  you  will  allow  me,  gentlemen,'  I 
suggested,  'I  shall  be  only  too  happy  to 
settle.' 

"  'Tut,  tut,'  said  Godwin,  'not  at  all,  my 
boy  —  couldn't  hear  of  it  —  why,  you're 
our  guest  —  couldn't  think  of  such  a  thing.' 

"They  kept  on  searching  until  it  was 
plain  both  were  broke  except  for  the  shilling, 
and  finally  I  paid  the  check  —  something 
like  fifty  dollars  it  amounted  to.  Then 
Godwin  arose  and  extended  to  me  his  hand. 

"'I  have  met  gentlemen,'  he  said  feel- 
ingly, 'but  you  are  a  nobleman.  You  shall 
have  this  in  the  morning,  old  chap.  Where 
are  you  stopping,  Cecil  or  Carleton?' 

"I  was  stopping  at  very  modest  lodgings 
in  Pimlico,  but  I  gave  him  the  address  — 
and  that  was  the  last  I  heard  of  the  tener. 

"Twenty  years  afterward  I  was  again  in 
London.  Beerbohm  Tree  had  come  up  the 
ladder,  and  was  playing  'Rip  Van  Winkle' 
at  His  Majesty's.  I  dropped  in  to  see  the 
performance,  and  sent  my  card  around. 
An  usher  came  back  with  the  message  Mr. 
Tree  would  like  to  see  me. 

"I  went  to  his  dressing  room.  We  con- 
fronted each  other,  and  after  a  moment 
without  exchanging  so  much  as  a  greeting, 
both  burst  out  laughing. 

'"What  are  you  laughing  at,  Mantell?' 
Tree  chuckled. 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     211 

"  'What  are  you,  Mr.  Tree?'  I  countered. 

"  'By  gad,'  he  answered,  *I  guess  I  owe 
you  a  dinner.' 

"  'I  guess  so,  too,'  I  replied.  'It's  been 
twenty  years,  but  I  see  you're  not  asleep 
like  our  old  friend  Rip.' 

"After  the  show  we  went  to  the  Carleton, 
and  Tree  ordered  a  dinner  that  settled  all 
scores." 

The  story  of  Mantell's  first  meeting  with 
Edwin  Booth  is  also  well  worth  relating. 
Mrs.  Kate  Byron,  sister  of  Ada  Rehan,  and 
herself  a  former  stage  celebrity,  told  it  to 
me  at  her  summer  home  in  Long  Branch. 

It  was  in  Miss  Fisher's  boarding  house  in 
Boston  —  not  the  famous  Fultah  Fisher  of 
Kipling  —  but  a  Fisher  no  less  renowned 
among  theatrical  people  than  Fultah  among 
seafaring  men.  Miss  Fisher's  boarding 
house  was  of  a  type  that  is  now  only  a 
vague,  pleasant  memory  writh  men  and 
women  of  the  stage,  who  spent  so  many 
happy,  homelike  hours  in  such  establish- 
ments. The  true  theatrical  boarding  house 
has  gone,  alas,  the  way  of  the  green  room. 

Mrs.  Byron  and  Mr.  Booth  were  stand- 
ing by  a  parlor  window  talking,  when  in 
danced  Mantell,  a  stage  youngster.  He 
had  a  bit  of  tobacco  in  his  cheek,  and  a 
merry  countenance  that  would  eloquently 
interpret  the  Dromios. 


212     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Mrs.  Byron  and  Mantell  were  good 
friends. 

"Mr.  Booth,"  said  the  actress,  "meet 
Mr.  Mantell." 

"Delighted,"  said  Mantell,  breezily,  ex- 
tending his  hand  before  the  other  could  get 
in  a  word.  "What  did  you  say  the  name 
was?" 

"Booth  —  Edwin  Booth,"  answered  Mrs. 
Byron,  eyeing  Mantell  keenly. 

"Oh,  ah,  oh  my!"  exclaimed  Mantell 
with  a  gulp  that  carried  with  it  the  tobacco 
down  his  throat. 

He  fled  from  the  room,  and  it  was  a 
long  time  before  he  could  ever  muster  up 
courage  again  to  meet  the  distinguished 
tragedian. 


CHAPTER  XXH. 

In  Which  the  Belated  Shower  of  Gold  Begins 
to  Trickle  Gently  Down  from  Gotham's 
Skies. 

THE  recognition  of  Robert  Mantell 
as  the  leader  of  the  American  stage 
on  the  night  of  his  first  perform- 
ance of  "King  Lear"  had  no  im- 
mediate effect  financially  at  the  Garden 
Theatre.    But  such  an  effect  became  ap- 
parent the  moment  he  left  New  York  for 
a  tour.  He  saw  then  a  conclusive  demonstra- 
tion of  the  value  of  a  New  York  endorse- 
ment.   During  the  days  of  his  exile  from 
the  metropolis  he  had  toured  the  country 
continuously,  and  had  made  his  name  known 
everywhere,  but  there  was  little  magic  in  it 
of  the  magnetic  sort  that  attracts  gold  to 
the  box  office. 

But  now  that  New  York  had  spoken,  and 
spoken  enthusiastically,  there  was  a  tre- 
mendous change.  Figures  in  this  case  speak 
as  through  a  megaphone.  Mantell  went  to 
Chicago  for  a  two  weeks'  stay.  The  first 
week  he  played  to  $8755  and  the  second  to 
$9600.  At  his  last  previous  engagement  - 
not  counting  the  one  at  the  old  Iroquois 

813 


214     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

where  fate  was  against  everybody  -  -  his 
receipts  had  amounted  to  only  $2100  on  the 
week,  and  this  business  had  been  gratifying 
to  him  in  comparison  with  that  of  some 
former  visits. 

The  profits  on  the  season  passed  $15,000, 
in  addition  to  his  salary,  a  thing  unheard 
of  before,  even  in  his  prosperous  days 
preceding  the  exile. 

During  this  summer  of  1906,  Mantell 
rested  at  Atlantic  Highlands  in  the  beauti- 
ful Leonard  Homestead.  It  was  this  prop- 
erty that  he  bought  the  following  summer 
and  rechristened  "Brucewood,"  from  his 
middle  name  and  in  honor  of  the  national 
hero  of  Scotland.  "Brucewood"  has  be- 
come famous  among  the  summer  homes 
along  the  Jersey  coast,  and  is  one  of  the 
most  attractive  of  them  all.  A  big,  pictur- 
esque house  sits  in  the  middle  of  extensive 
grounds,  parked  after  the  manner  of  the 
country  estates  of  England  and  Scotland, 
and  surrounded  by  a  unique  wooden  rail 
fence  of  Mantell's  own  designing. 

The  season  of  1906-7  was  one  of  triumphs 
for  the  actor  who  so  long  had  crawled  in 
the  dust  of  poverty,  but  who  now  had  been 
raised  to  the  heavens  of  prosperity.  Early 
in  the  season  in  Montreal,  he  played  lago 
for  the  first  time  in  America,  and  succeeded 
so  well  in  the  part,  to  which  he  gave  a 


•iwrcEwooiv  THK  MAXTELL  ESTATE 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     215 

peculiar  twist  and  zest  that  had  been  lack- 
ing in  his  predecessors,  that,  for  a  time,  he 
alternated  it  with  Othello. 

In  Buffalo  on  October  26,  he  played 
Shylock  for  the  first  time  on  the  professional 
stage.  Long  years  before,  as  an  amateur  in 
Glasgow,  he  had  appeared  as  the  Jew  and 
had  been  fascinated  by  the  part,  which, 
next  to  Hamlet,  has  probably  the  greatest 
attraction  of  any  of  Shakespeare's  creations 
for  the  actor. 

The  manager  of  the  theatre  in  Buffalo  and 
some  personal  friends  of  Mantell  who  had 
their  fingers  on  the  play-going  pulse  of  that 
city  strongly  advised  him  to  postpone  his 
premiere  in  favor  of  some  other  town. 
Richard  Mansfield  and  E.  H.  Sothern  had 
both  played  Shylock  there  recently,  and 
both  had  been  disappointed  in  the  size  of 
the  audiences.  But  Mantell  persisted.  The 
box-office  statement  proved  to  the  doubting 
Thomases  that  Buffalo  was  willing  to  risk 
$1,172.50  on  the  chance  of  his  "making 
good  "  as  the  Jew. 

"The  Merchant  of  Venice"  has  been  one 
of  Mr.  Mantell's  most  reliable  drawing 
cards  ever  since.  His  Shylock  has  been 
greatly  admired,  and  at  least  one  competent 
critic,  Robinson  Locke  of  Toledo,  has  found 
in  his  interpretation  a  passage  that  he 
considers  the  supreme  masterpiece  of  tragic 


216     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

acting  in  a  long  recollection  of  the  stage. 

This  is  Shylock's  exit  at  the  close  of  the 
trial  scene.  Here  Mantell  introduces  a  piece 
of  "stage  business"  of  his  own  invention, 
the  result  of  a  lucky  accident.  Shylock  one 
night  after  the  trial  was  walking  slowly  off 
the  stage  in  the  traditional  manner  of  utter 
dejection,  with  head  bowed  so  low  that  the 
chin  touched  the  breast.  A  new  Antonio 
was  on  the  stage  that  night,  and  he  had 
blundered  awkwardly  into  the  very  path  of 
Shylock's  exit,  and  stood  there  unconscious 
of  fault. 

"Get  out  of  the  way,"  Mantell  muttered 
as  he  approached.  Antonio  didn't  hear. 

A  little  nearer,  and  "Step  back,"  com- 
manded Shylock,  under  his  breath.  Antonio 
still  did  not  budge. 

Then  Mantell  paused,  raised  his  head 
very  slowly,  looked  the  merchant  in  the 
eye,  and  whispered  sternly:  "Get  out  of 
the  way!"  This  time  the  command  was 
effective. 

But  there  was  something  else  more  effect- 
ive still,  which  the  tragedian  perceived 
through  that  mysterious  bond  of  sympathy 
that  connects  actor  and  audience.  As  he 
raised  his  head,  he  felt  the  audience  respond 
to  a  new  sensation.  It  was  a  last  spasm  of 
pride  in  the  defeated  Jew,  or  perhaps  a 
reproach  to  the  God  of  Israel  for  delivering 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     217 

him  over  to  the  mercy  of  the  Gentiles. 
Anyhow,  there  was  a  subtle  something  that 
Mantell  had  never  before  conveyed  to  an 
audience,  and,  with  the  instinct  for  dra- 
matic effect  which  he  possesses  above  all 
living  tragedians,  Mantell  decided  immedi- 
ately to  incorporate  this  action  permanently 
into  Shylock. 

Of  late  years,  since  the  vanity  of  the 
matinee  idol  has  been  submerged  in  the 
dignity  of  the  tragedian,  Mantell  has  not 
displayed  himself  in  proper  person  to  his 
audiences,  except  occasionally  after  the  last 
act  of  "The  Merchant  of  Venice."  It  was 
formerly  the  custom  for  a  male  star  to 
conclude  the  performance  of  ''The  Mer- 
chant" with  the  trial  scene,  but  Mr.  Man- 
tell  has  followed  the  lead  of  Irving  in 
restoring  to  the  comedy  the  picturesque 
last  act  in  the  garden  of  Belmont.  During 
this  act,  in  which  Shylock,  of  course,  does 
not  appear,  Mantell  changes  to  citizen's 
clothing,  and,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  play, 
sometimes  appears  for  a  moment  in  front 
of  the  curtain.  Never  while  in  the  dress  of 
a  character  —  unless  the  occasion  be  ex- 
traordinary —  does  he  step  out  of  his  role, 
even  when  responding  to  encores.  It  is 
Lear  who  bows,  or  Othello,  or  Macbeth  — 
never  Mantell.  He  believes  the  illusion  is 
better  thus  sustained. 


218     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

After  "The  Merchant  of  Venice"  had 
been  successfully  launched,  Mantell  again 
went  into  New  York  —  this  time  to  a  finan- 
cial triumph  as  complete  as  his  artistic 
triumphs  before  had  been.  He  was  housed 
in  the  best  theatre  obtainable,  the  Academy 
of  Music.  He  opened  his  engagement  on 
November  5,  1906,  and  his  receipts  the 
first  week  passed  $10,000.  "Richard  III" 
in  one  day  —  Saturday  matinee  and  eve- 
ning —  drew  $2200.  The  second  week  of  his 
engagement  he  played  lago  for  the  first 
time  in  New  York.  That  curiosity  was 
healthy  was  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that 
the  novelty  drew  $1600  into  the  box  office. 
On  the  night  of  November  26  Mantell 
played  Brutus  for  the  first  time  on  any  stage 
and,  using  "Julius  Caesar"  for  the  entire 
week,  he  played  to  $14,000. 

So  gratifying  was  this  success  in  New 
York  that  Brady  decided  to  bring  his  star 
back  later  in  the  season.  He  negotiated  for 
the  handsome  New  Amsterdam  Theatre, 
one  of  the  most  fashionable  of  the  me- 
tropolis, but  could  secure  no  time  until 
April  29.  But,  in  spite  of  the  lateness  of 
the  season  and  the  warmth  of  the  weather, 
which  spells  death  to  serious  drama  in  New 
York,  Mantell  filled  a  two  weeks'  engage- 
ment there,  playing  to  $8000  the  first  week 
and  $9000  the  second.  Clearly,  New  York 


A  MASTER  OF  MAKE-UP 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     219 

wanted  Shakespeare  when  it  could  get  the 
right  brand,  and  clearly  Mantell  could 
supply  the  brand. 

At  the  conclusion  of  this  engagement, 
Mantell  went  to  Atlantic  Highlands  where 
he  purchased  the  property  he  converted 
into  "Brucewood,"  as  already  related.  It 
was  the  first  home  he  had  had  since  he  left 
Ireland  a  third  of  a  century  before.  He 
felt  for  the  first  time  in  his  stage  career  the 
luxurious  ease  and  content  that  comes  with 
the  possession  of  property.  Summer  after 
summer  since  then  he  has  improved  and 
extended  his  estate.  The  most  valuable 
extension  is  a  supplementary  estate,  which 
was  christened  "Maywood,"  in  honor  of 
Marie  Booth  Russell. 

Heretofore  Mantell,  in  adding  to  his 
repertoire,  had  adhered  closely  to  the  de- 
pendable classics  —  the  dramas  that  had 
been  successfully  presented  by  generation 
after  generation  of  tragedians.  "King 
Lear,"  the  only  apparent  exception,  was 
an  exception  only  because  few  can  play  it. 
In  the  few  instances  of  adequate  perform- 
ances in  stage  history,  it  has  brought  both 
fame  and  fortune  to  its  interpreter. 

But  now  Mantell  and  Brady  decided  upon 
a  bold  experiment —  "King  John,"  Shake- 
speare's crude  chronicle  play.  Brady  saw 
great  possibilities  in  the  pathetic  episode  of 


220     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Prince  Arthur  for  the  kind  of  "heart  inter- 
est" that  has  proved  so  profitable  to  him 
in  "Way  Down  East,'*  the  most  successful 
of  all  American  melodramas;  "Mother," 
"Little  Women,"  and  the  rest.  Mantell 
saw  in  "King  John"  chances  for  magnifi- 
cent pageantry  and  for  two  or  three  mo- 
ments of  great  acting,  especially  a  death 
scene  of  thrilling  intensity. 

Mantell  and  Brady  set  to  work  on  a 
production  which  they  determined  should 
surpass  in  magnificence  anything  of  the 
sort  ever  before  attempted  in  America. 
They  used  as  a  basis  the  plans  of  a  produc- 
tion built  for  Sir  Herbert  Tree  in  London, 
but  modified  and  altered  these  plans  to  suit 
special  ideas  of  their  own. 

Mantell,  who  heretofore  had  relied  largely 
on  prompt  books  of  Edwin  Booth  and  other 
of  the  older  tragedians,  proceeded  to  make 
his  own  version  of  "  King  John,"  after  find- 
ing all  previous  acting  versions  unsuited  to 
his  tastes.  He  believed  the  stumbling 
blocks  encountered  by  former  actors  who 
had  attempted  the  role,  arising  principally 
from  Shakespeare's  own  apparent  discrep- 
ancies, to  be  removable  by  a  new  stage 
interpretation  of  John.  He  considered  the 
discrepancies  explainable  by  the  weakness 
and  vacillation  inherent  in  the  tyrant's 
own  nature,  and  believed  himself  capable, 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     221 

by  proper  acting,  of  reconciling  them  all. 
Accordingly,  he  cut  down  the  play  only  for 
the  purpose  of  making  it  short  enough  for 
stage  presentation  under  present-day  con- 
ditions, leaving  the  order  of  the  text  exactly 
as  Shakespeare  wrote  it. 

It  was  not  his  first  revolt  against  tradi- 
tion. He  had,  for  instance,  restored  the  fool 
to  "King  Lear,"  omitted  by  most  trage- 
dians, including  Edwin  Booth,  and  he  had 
made  the  fool,  in  a  beautiful  heartfelt  in- 
terpretation by  Guy  Lindsley,  a  vital  force 
in  the  tragedy. 

Throwing  all  traditions  of  the  role  of 
John  to  the  wind,  Mantell  set  to  work  to 
develop  a  personage  that  should  be  new 
to  the  stage.  The  attention  he  gave  to  the 
death  scene  is  of  particular  interest.  Tra- 
dition declares  that  King  John  died  by  a 
slow  poison  administered  by  a  monk  and 
records  a  few  symptoms  that  preceded 
death.  Mantell  gathered  together  every- 
thing he  could  find  relating  to  the  death 
agonies,  and  then  submitted  the  whole 
to  his  family  physician,  Dr.  Benjamin  Kopf, 
of  Brooklyn. 

"There  is  the  case,  Doctor,"  said  the 
actor,  "now  tell  me  exactly  how  a  man  so 
poisoned  would  die." 

Dr.  Kopf,  who  himself  has  made  a  hobby 
of  Shakespeare,  set  to  work  as  earnestly  as 


222     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

if  John  had  been  a  patient  of  his  own,  whom 
there  was  still  some  hope  of  saving.  He 
went  carefully  through  all  the  records  of 
the  case,  and  applied  to  them  the  dis- 
coveries of  modern  science.  Then,  step  by 
step,  he  detailed  the  agonies  of  the  death  of 
the  most  miserable  tyrant  that  ever  sat  on 
an  English  throne. 

A  ghastly  gray-green  pallor  and  huge 
drops  of  perspiration  were  prominent  ex- 
ternal phenomena.  Mantell's  instinct  for 
tragic  effect  seized  eagerly  upon  them. 
Great  drops  of  vaseline,  apparently  exuding 
from  the  whitened  face,  and  coursing  down 
the  red,  stringy  beard,  and  all  set  under  a 
pale  green  light,  formed  a  picture  of  horror 
that  nobody  who  has  seen  Mantell's  King 
John  will  ever  forget.  Marie  Booth  Russell, 
standing  in  the  wings  on  the  opening  night, 
was  seized  with  a  nervous  chill  at  the  sight 
of  her  husband  looking  so  ghastly,  and, 
half-fainting,  declared  she  would  never 
watch  the  death  scene  again. 

The  premiere  of  "King  John"  occurred 
at  the  Grand  Opera  House,  Chicago,  on  the 
night  of  November  18,  1907.  Never  has 
Mantell  been  more  lavishly  praised  for  real 
art  than  by  the  critics  of  this  performance 
and  by  those  who  saw  his  first  New  York 
performance  at  the  New  Amsterdam 
Theatre  the  night  of  March  9,  1909.  Yet 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     223 

playgoers  in  general  showed  little  interest. 
The  Chicago  engagement  was  a  disappoint- 
ment financially,  and  during  the  week  that 
"King  John"  was  presented  in  New  York, 
the  receipts  were  only  $5000,  whereas  the 
next  week,  when  the  old  repertoire  was 
repeated,  they  were  more  than  doubled. 
It  was  not  until  Mantell  took  "King  John" 
on  a  coast-to-coast  tour  during  the  season 
of  1913-14  that  it  proved  profitable.  On 
that  trip,  it  almost  duplicated  the  sensation 
Mantell  had  made  in  "King  Lear." 

It  was  in  this  play  at  the  beginning  of 
this  tour  that  Ethel  Mantell,  the  daughter 
of  the  tragedian,  made  her  first  stage  ap- 
pearance in  a  speaking  part.  In  the  previous 
March,  during  a  visit  to  her  father  in 
Albany,  the  scene  of  his  own  American 
debut,  she  had  walked  on  the  stage  in 
"Julius  Caesar,"  but  only  as  a  young  Roman 
girl  "in  the  picture." 

Miss  Mantell's  debut  as  a  real  actress 
took  place  on  the  night  of  October  6,  1913, 
at  the  Alvin  Theatre,  Pittsburgh.  She  ap- 
peared as  Lady  Blanche.  A  yellow-haired 
girl  of  seventeen,  fresh  from  a  convent 
school,  who  had  inherited  the  handsome- 
ness of  her  father  and  the  beauty  of  her 
mother,  she  was  the  fairest  Lady  Blanche 
that  ever  trod  the  stage. 

Miss  Mantell  gave  proof  at  the  outset  of 


324     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

her  career  of  a  determination  to  succeed 
that  is  unusual.  She  overcame,  not  without 
a  struggle,  a  natural  vanity  arising  from  her 
beauty,  and  consented  to  play  a  witch  in 
"Macbeth."  Mr.  Mantell  persuaded  her 
that,  in  the  ugly  cloak,  the  straggly  facial 
hair  and  the  cankerous  daubs  that  des- 
troyed every  vestige  of  her  beauty,  she 
could  learn  more  of  the  real  art  of  acting 
than  in  the  rich  and  splendid  robes  of  Lady 
Blanche  or  the  simple,  pretty  gown  of 
Jessica  in  "The  Merchant  of  Venice." 
And  so,  for  one  night  in  the  week,  the 
beautiful  young  girl,  for  the  sake  of  her 
future,  converted  herself  into  a  "secret 
black  and  midnight  hag." 

Louis  XI  is  the  last,  and  so  far  as  physical 
acting  is  concerned,  the  most  marvelous 
classic  figure  Mantell  has  given  to  the 
stage.  The  actor's  transformation  in  phy- 
sique to  the  personage  of  Louis  is  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  in  stage  history. 

When  I  saw  Louis  for  the  first  tune,  I 
could  not  credit  my  eyes.  The  night  before, 
Mantell,  as  Othello,  had  been  a  giant  tower- 
ing over  another  giant  in  the  person  of  his 
leading  man,  Fritz  Leiber,  who  was  playing 
lago.  He  was  the  biggest  man  on  a  stage 
full  of  big  men,  for  he  loves  to  have  actors 
around  him  of  heroic  size. 

Surely,  the  Othello  of  last  night  could 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     225 

not  be  the  weak,  insignificant  contemptible 
creature  of  tonight.  For  Louis  was  a  head 
shorter  even  than  the  women  on  the  stage. 
He  didn't  reach  to  the  shoulder  of  the  un- 
fortunate Marie,  the  victim  of  his  cruelty; 
and  her  lover,  the  lago  of  last  night,  could 
have  crushed  the  wretch  with  his  foot. 

This  is  no  exaggeration,  as  any  one  who 
has  seen  the  astonishing  performance  can 
testify.  Mantell  in  the  role  of  Louis  ap- 
parently loses  nearly  a  foot  of  his  stature 
and  reduces  his  weight  by  a  hundred  pounds. 
His  hands  and  arms  appear  corded  and 
emaciated,  and  his  legs,  encased  in  hosiery, 
seem  shrunk  and  shrivelled.  The  eye  cannot 
detect  where  the  height  and  weight  have 
gone.  As  Richard  III,  Mantell  is  stooped 
to  represent  the  hunchback,  but  he  is  a 
stooping  giant.  No  weight  has  disappeared. 
With  Louis  it  is  different.  There  is  no 
hump,  he  is  not  deformed,  only  emaciated 
with  age  and  disease. 

No  other  man  on  the  American  stage 
today  seems  to  possess  this  power  of  alter- 
ing the  figure  noticeably.  Mantell's  only 
rival  is  a  woman  —  the  Russian  Nazimova. 
She  makes  something  of  the  same  transition 
from  Hedda  Gabler  to  Nora  that  Mantell 
does  from  Othello  to  Louis,  but  her  trans- 
formation is  not  nearly  so  pronounced. 

I  would  tell  you  how  Mantell  does  it,  for 


226     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

a  biographer  naturally  shares  all  secrets  of 
the  subject  of  his  sketch,  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  if  I  don't  make  a  fortune  out 
of  this  book  I  am  going  to  open  a  sanitarium 
for  the  quick  reduction  of  weight  by  the 
Mantell  method.  I  shall  only  give  a  hint 
here.  More  magic  lies  in  old,  threadbare 
clothing  than  is  dreamed  of  in  the  phil- 
osophy of  the  tailors  and  dressmakers. 

Mr.  Mantell  first  played  "Louis  XI"  in 
St.  Louis  on  the  night  of  November  6,  1908. 
He  used  the  version  prepared  for  Sir  Henry 
Irving  from  the  French  of  Casimer  Dela- 
vigne,  a  contemporary  and  rival  of  Dumas, 
who  sought  to  make  French  history  live  as 
vividly  on  the  stage  as  Dumas  made  it 
live  in  fiction.  The  English  version  is  so 
inharmonious  in  swing  to  a  tongue  accus- 
tomed to  the  easy  flow  of  Shakespeare,  that 
Mr.  Mantell  has  never  become  "letter 
perfect"  in  the  part.  But  with  the  genius  of 
the  real  tragedian,  he  has  made  the  very 
ruggedness  of  the  lines  fit  into  the  monstrous 
character  of  Louis. 

Owing  to  the  strain  accompanying  the 
physical  shrinking  into  Louis,  and  to  the 
difficulty  encountered  in  trying  to  make  the 
lines  behave  on  a  tongue  trained  to  Shake- 
spearean verse,  Mr.  Mantell,  on  the  night 
of  "Louis  XI,"  is  never  asked  for  increases 
in  salary  nor  other  similar  favors  by  the 


TWO  SHAHI'LY-CONTRASTKI)  FKKNCII  STTIHES 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     227 

members  of  his  company  and  the  stage 
crew.  Everybody  carefully  avoids  blunders, 
and  the  care  thus  exercised  consciously,  is 
almost  always  productive  of  something  that 
would  not  occur  on  any  other  night. 

Here  is  a  case  in  point.  "Louis  XI"  ends 
with  a  death  scene  that  rivals  for  dramatic 
intensity  that  of  "King  John."  The  scene 
never  fails  to  create  a  creeping  awe  in  the 
crowd  out  front,  and,  after  the  spell  is 
broken  by  the  descent  of  the  curtain,  encore 
after  encore  is  the  invariable  result. 
Through  the  first  of  these  encores,  Louis 
retains  his  position  of  death  in  his  chair. 
Sometimes,  when  the  audience  becomes 
insistent,  Mantell  arises  while  the  curtain 
is  down,  and  then  appears  between  the 
folds  of  the  velvet  and  makes  a  final  bow. 

On  the  particular  night  in  question,  the 
performance  had  gone  along  with  marvelous 
smoothness.  There  had  not  been  a  hitch 
anywhere,  and  everybody  was  heaving  a 
great  sigh  of  relief  that  it  was  all  over. 
Then,  when  it  came  time  for  Mr.  Mantell 
to  get  up  out  of  the  chair,  the  unlucky 
wight  at  the  curtain  pulled  it  up,  and 
revealed  to  the  audience  the  process  of 
resurrection. 

Barney  Turner,  Mr.  Mantell's  stage  car- 
penter, who  was  responsible  for  the  me- 
chanical working  of  the  show,  saw.  He  also 


228     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

understood.  Though  he  was  not  the  man 
who  had  committed  the  blunder,  he  knew 
he  was  the  one  who  must  take  the  blame. 
And  so  he  quietly  stole  out  of  the  stage 
door,  and  away  to  his  hotel. 

Next  day  Mr.  Mantell  encountered  him 
at  the  car. 

"Where  were  you  last  night?"  asked  the 
tragedian. 

"I  was  on  the  stage,"  answered  Turner. 
"But  I  saw  you,  Governor,  before  you  saw 
me,  and  I  ducked." 

Mantell  laughed  heartily,  for  he  enjoys 
a  thing  like  that  —  after  it  is  all  over. 

The  physical  miracle  of  "Louis  XI"  has 
caused  a  number  of  Mantell's  critics  to 
rank  this  role  alongside  or  even  above  King 
Lear,  but  for  dramatic  intensity  and  sus- 
tained power,  the  French  monarch  does  not 
compare  for  a  moment  with  the  mad  old 
Briton. 

As  has  been  observed,  Louis  XI  is  the 
last  classic  interpretation  Mantell  has  given 
to  the  stage.  On  the  afternoon  of  October 
27,  1909,  however,  he  appeared  in  Phila- 
delphia for  the  first  time  in  a  new  produc- 
tion of  "As  You  Like  It."  Previously,  he 
had  played  Orlando  in  this  country  at  the 
summer  performance  at  Asbury  Park,  where 
he  had  wrestled  with  Muldoon  and  met 
Brady.  But  he  had  not  put  it  on  the  regular 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     229 

stage.  In  this  new  production,  Marie  Booth 
Russell  made  a  most  charming  Rosalind. 
Rosalind  and  Lady  Macbeth  were  perhaps 
her  most  perfect  characterizations. 

Though  now  supreme  among  American 
tragedians,  Robert  Mantell  was  not  con- 
tent. He  longed  for  another  plunge  into 
romantic  drama  of  the  sort  in  which  he  had 
scored  in  the  days  when  he  was  a  matinee 
idol.  He  procured  for  the  experiment  a 
new  comedy  of  Irish  life,  "The  O'Flynn," 
by  Justin  Huntly  McCarthy.  Mantell 
was  enthusiastic  over  the  rollicking  situa- 
tions of  the  play,  and  he  brushed  to  a  high 
polish  his  rich  Irish  brogue  of  the  Belfast 
days. 

The  attendance  at  the  premiere  in  Pitts- 
burgh the  night  of  October  20,  1910,  was 
not  encouraging,  but  the  audience  seemed  to 
be  as  hugely  delighted  as  the  actor,  and  he 
felt  success  was  in  his  grasp.  He  repeated 
the  play  several  times.  The  few  who  came 
to  see  it  laughed  uproariously,  but  the 
hordes  who  stayed  away  didn't  seem  to  be 
nervously  disturbed  over  what  they  were 
missing.  Then,  Mantell  gave  in.  It  was 
in  the  classics  he  was  wanted,  not  in  some 
new  play,  no  matter  how  clever.  He  had 
made  his  own  bed.  He  would  lie  in  it.  He 
felt  a  little  as  though  he  had  forged  chains 
for  himself.  He  loved  the  classics,  but 


230     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

why  feel  himself  bound  to  them  irrevoc- 
ably? 

But  a  period  of  prosperity  is  not  a  period 
in  which  to  mourn  inconsolably,  and  if 
"The  OTlynn"  failed  to  draw,  there  was 
"Lear"  or  "Richard"  or  "Hamlet."  So, 
"The  O'Flynn"  was  offered  up  on  the  altar 
to  the  manes  of  the  old  romantic  days,  and 
Robert  Mantell  pursued  cheerfully  his 
classic  way. 

But,  about  this  time,  Marie  Booth  Rus- 
sell, who  had  been  his  companion  through 
the  bitterest  period  of  his  struggles,  and 
who  was  now  enjoying  with  him  the  well- 
earned  fruits  of  prosperity,  began  to  fail  in 
health.  A  malady  of  long  standing  gradually 
gained  the  mastery  over  her  strong  consti- 
tution, and  in  the  spring  of  1911,  it  became 
apparent  that  she  stood  in  the  shadow 
of  death.  Her  last  appearance  on  the 
stage  was  at  Daly's  Theatre,  New  York, 
May  13,  in  the  role  of  Portia  in  "Julius 
Caesar." 

When  the  new  season  opened  in  Septem- 
ber, Marie  Booth  Russell  was  too  ill  to 
leave  the  home  at  "Brucewood."  The 
history  of  fourteen  years  ago  was  now  re- 
peated. At  the  close  of  each  week,  Mantell 
hurried  back  from  the  various  cities  of  his 
route  to  the  bedside  of  his  dying  wife.  On 
the  afternoon  of  October  31,  he  received  in 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     231 

Pittsburgh  a  message  to  hasten  home.  He 
entered  upon  a  race  with  death.  Death 
won.  Marie  Booth  Russell  drew  her  last 
breath  at  8.45  p.  M.  Five  hours  later, 
Mantell  arrived  at  "Brucewood." 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Being  the  Postscriptum,  which,  like  a  School 
Girl's  Letter,  May  Have  in  it  the  Pith  of 
the  Whole  Document. 

AND    now,    like    Hamlet's    father's 
ghost,   I  must  haste  to  be  gone. 
The  very  number  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter,  the  Mystic  Twenty- 
Three  —  and  all  the  more  so  because  it  falls 
quite  accidentally  and  not  from  calculated 
design  —  warns  me  like  another  tocsin  of 
the  misty-gray  Aurora. 

It  is  in  Cincinnati  in  the  theatrically  dull 
week  preceding  the  Christmas  of  1917. 
The  publisher  has  in  type  all  of  the  book  to 
this  point,  and  is  clamoring  for  the  final 
chapter.  I  am  having  my  last  conference 
with  Mr.  Mantell  in  his  rooms  at  the  Sinton. 

"Did  you  put  in  the  book  the  story  about 
the  elevator  man  at  the  New  Amsterdam?" 
he  asks. 

"What  story?  I  don't  believe  I  ever 
heard  it." 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  leave  out  that  one," 
chirps  in  the  youthful  Mrs.  Genevieve 
Hamper  Mantell. 

The  tragedian  strikes  his  best  story- 
telling attitude. 

Hi 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     233 

It  was  when  he  was  filling  an  engagement 
at  the  handsome  New  Amsterdam  Theatre, 
New  York.  There  is  an  elevator  in  the 
theatre  by  which  the  players  are  conveyed 
from  dressing  room  to  stage,  in  the  glory  of 
their  makeup.  In  those  days,  the  elevator 
was  in  charge  of  a  twin  brother  of  the 
Ancient  Mariner,  a  house  fixture,  with  all 
the  privileges  of  a  veteran  to  whom  even 
Abraham  Erlanger  and  Marcus  Klaw  must 
show  deference. 

It  was  Othello  night.  Mantell  was  made 
up  in  all  the  barbaric  splendor  of  the  hand- 
some Moor.  The  elevator  man  looked  him 
over  critically  as  he  stepped  into  the  car. 
But  he  held  his  peace,  until  he  had  put  the 
lumbering  machinery  into  operation.  (Man- 
tell,  in  the  telling,  gave  an  admirable  im- 
personation of  the  tugging  of  the  Ancient 
at  the  wire  cables.)  Then  the  old  fellow 
remarked  admiringly: 

"Lud,  Governor,  but  you  look  fine  to- 
night—  you  look  just  like  Lew  Dock- 
stader!" 

The  story,  told  with  all  Mr.  Mantell's 
skill  of  impersonation,  "gets  across  big." 

"Another  night  I  was  playing  Louis  XI," 
continues  the  actor.  "I  stepped  into  the 
elevator  in  the  horrible  makeup  of  the 
part,  and  actually  startled  even  my  iron- 
nerved  old  friend.  He  looked  me  over 


234     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

again  and  then  remarked:  *  Governor,  to 
tell  the  truth,  you  look  like .' ' 

"  Don't  mind  Mr.  Mantell,"  interrupts  his 
wife.  "When  one  of  his  stories  goes  over, 
he  likes  to  add  a  climax.  Sometimes  he 
succeeds  and  sometimes  he  doesn't.  I 
know  he  is  going  to  fall  down  this  time,  and 
so  I'll  just  tell  you  he  didn't  play  Louis  at 
the  New  Amsterdam  at  all!" 

Mantell  is  in  his  cheerfulest  mood  in 
Cincinnati  this  week.  It  is  a  city  full  of 
pleasant  memories.  A  caller  at  the  Sin  ton 
is  Howard  Saxby,  a  veteran  magazine 
writer.  Saxby  and  Mantell  are  the  sole 
survivors  of  a  distinguished  company  pres- 
ent years  ago  at  the  most  notable  banquet 
ever  given  in  the  State  of  Ohio. 

Col.  W.  B.  Smith  — "Policy  Bill" — 
politician  and  patron  of  stage  people  — 
was  the  host.  The  place  was  his  beautiful 
and  famous  Hyde  Park  home.  Among  the 
guests  were  William  McKinley,  J.  B.  For- 
aker,  F.  Hopkinson  Smith,  John  Clark 
Ridpath,  Col.  Robert  G.  Ingersoll  and  John 
Sherman. 

"Policy  Bill,"  always  a  lavish  entertainer, 
made  this  banquet  the  supreme  effort  of 
his  life.  Epicurus  could  not  have  improved 
on  it.  The  dinner  was  built  round  a  bear 
that  had  been  fattened  for  a  year  in  Colo- 
rado for  the  express  purpose  of  playing  the 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     235 

star  role  of  eatables  this  night.  There  were 
grapes  imported  from  Asia  at  a  cost  of 
$2.50  each.  Wines  stored  in  Parisian  cellars 
in  the  days  before  the  French  Revolution, 
and  valued  by  the  drop  instead  of  by  the 
pint  or  quart,  were  served  as  a  sort  of 
symphonic  climax  to  a  graded  series  of 
French  and  Italian  wines  of  other  rare 
vintage.  So  harmoniously  were  they 
blended  that  not  a  guest  quitted  the 
banquet  at  2  o'clock  in  the  morning  in  a 
state  of  intoxication.  Colonel  Smith  prided 
himself  on  being  able  to  entertain  with 
Epicurean  lavishness,  without  any  resultant 
drunkenness  or  indigestion. 

The  guests  carried  away  with  them  as 
souvenirs  the  menu  cards  —  engraved  sheets 
of  thin  steel.  The  banquet  had  cost  "Policy 
Bill"  Smith  $350  a  plate. 

Another  visitor  at  the  Sinton  is  Ethel 
Mantell,  daughter  of  the  tragedian.  She 
has  left  her  father's  company  to  follow  a 
stage  career  of  greater  independence  among 
strangers.  She  is  with  "The  13th  Chair," 
which  is  resting  during  the  dull  week  be- 
fore Christmas. 

Though  in  the  seven  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  "The  O'Flynn"  Robert  Man- 
tell  has  staged  nothing  new,  he  has  not  been 
idle.  He  has,  indeed,  put  in  the  most  useful 
labor  of  his  life  polishing  and  perfecting 


236     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

the  roles  already  in  a  repertoire  that  cannot 
be  improved  in  quality  by  any  further  ex- 
tension, and  that  surpasses  in  quantity 
anything  habitually  presented  by  a  trage- 
dian in  the  memory  of  any  of  us. 

Under  the  balmy  influence  of  a  prosperity 
undreamed  of  in  his  "barn-storming"  days, 
when  his  acting  partook  too  much,  perhaps, 
of  the  physical,  his  art  has  ripened  and 
mellowed,  until  now,  at  the  very  zenith  of 
his  genius,  his  equality  with  Booth  and 
Irving  is  being  proclaimed  boldly  by  the 
more  daring  of  the  newspaper  critics.  As 
one  of  them  expressed  it  only  a  few  weeks 
ago,  "the  reviewers  who  sigh  for  the  great 
old  days  of  Booth  are  the  spiritual  fathers 
of  the  reviewers  who,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
hence,  will  be  sighing  for  the  great  old  days 
of  Mantell!" 

I  have  communicated  to  Corporal  Dob- 
bin, the  Shakespearean  policeman  out  in 
San  Francisco,  the  information  that  the 
competent  critics  of  Boston  and  elsewhere 
are  noticing  in  the  last  two  or  three  years  a 
marked  improvement  in  Mantell's  acting. 
Dobbin,  who  hasn't  witnessed  a  performance 
in  this  period,  writes  back  skeptically:  "  I 
never  could  see  with  my  North  of  Ireland 
eyes  where  there  was  any  chance  for  im- 
provement in  the  governor." 

Be  that  as  it  may,  S.  I.  Conner,  special 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     237 

envoy  of  the  Mantell  organization  to  the 
institutions  of  learning,  is  finding  during 
the  current  season  that  the  great  univer- 
sities of  New  England  and  the  East,  so 
cautious  in  their  endorsement  of  anything 
not  thoroughly  tried  and  proven,  have 
broken  down  their  last  barriers  of  restraint, 
and  are  extending  to  Mr.  Mantell  the  same 
warmth  of  admiring  congratulation  ac- 
corded him  hah*  a  dozen  years  ago  by  the 
less  conservative  Western  universities. 
Mantell  has  established  himself  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  as  a  classic  institu- 
tion. A  visit  by  him  to  a  center  of  culture 
has  become  an  event  comparable  in  dignity 
with  a  season  of  grand  opera. 

These  years  of  the  ripening  of  his  art 
have  been  rendered  golden,  too,  in  the 
romantic  history  of  the  most  picturesque 
of  all  the  great  tragedians  by  his  long  honey- 
moon with  his  young  and  beautiful  wife  and 
leading  woman,  who  retains  for  stage  pur- 
poses her  maiden  name  of  Genevieve 
Hamper. 

Miss  Hamper  came  into  Mr.  Mantell's 
life  at  his  darkest  hour  —  the  hour  in 
which  he  was  cast  into  the  depths  of  gloom 
and  despair  by  the  death  of  Marie  Booth 
Russell,  his  companion  and  co-worker  for 
so  many  years.  Miss  Hamper  had  been  the 
protegee  of  Miss  Russell,  and,  as  such,  had 


£38     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

frequently  come  in  contact  with  Mr.  Man- 
tell,  who  had  learned  to  esteem  her  for  her 
rapidly  unfolding  stage  talent  and  for  a 
cheerfulness  and  buoyancy  of  disposition 
that  made  her  a  favorite  with  her  associates. 

On  the  tour  to  the  Pacific  Coast  that 
followed  the  death  of  Miss  Russell,  Miss 
Hamper  did  her  utmost  to  lighten  the  gloom, 
which,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  seemed  to 
threaten  with  permanent  extinction  the 
joyous  spirit  of  the  actor.  Under  her  influ- 
ence, the  gloom  gradually  melted  away.  A 
love  romance  developed,  and  in  Pueblo, 
Colorado,  Mr.  Mantell  and  Miss  Hamper 
were  quietly  married. 

Miss  Hamper  had  first  entered  the 
Mantell  organization  as  an  "extra"  girl 
during  the  visit  of  the  tragedian  to  her  home 
city  of  Detroit  in  the  autumn  of  1910.  Her 
beauty  and  grace,  and  a  certain  classic  pose 
that  differentiated  her  sharply  from  the 
general  run  of  "supers,"  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  both  Mr.  Mantell  and  Marie 
Booth  Russell.  As  the  company  was  in 
need  of  a  young  woman  of  her  type  to  play 
light  girlish  parts,  she  was  offered  the  posi- 
tion, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  she  had  had  no 
previous  stage  training.  Upon  her  accept- 
ance, she  was  instructed  to  study  such 
roles  as  Cordelia  in  "King  Lear,"  Jessica  in 
"The  Merchant  of  Venice,"  and  the  little 


MISS  GEN  FA' I  EVE  HAMPKK 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     239 

Prince  of  Wales  in  "Richard  III,"  and  to 
report  for  duty  in  Chicago  the  next  week. 

It  was  in  Chicago,  accordingly,  on 
Thanksgiving  afternoon,  November  24, 
1910,  that  Miss  Hamper  made  her  debut. 
Her  matinee  part  was  Jessica,  and  Thanks- 
giving night  she  played  the  little  princely 
nephew  of  the  ogerish  Richard.  The  follow- 
ing night  she  appeared  as  Cordelia,  the  most 
tenderly  sympathetic  of  all  Shakespeare's 
heroines,  and  this  role,  alone,  of  those 
she  first  played,  she  has  kept  ever  since. 
Her  quick  and  gratifying  display  of  talent 
made  her  a  favorite  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Mantell  and  they  took  her  under  their 
immediate  protection. 

After  two  years  of  striving  with  the 
numberless  difficulties  of  the  classic  art, 
Mr.  Mantell  gave  Miss  Hamper  her  first 
chance  to  appear  as  his  leading  woman. 
During  the  course  of  a  May  week  in 
Ottawa  in  1912,  she  played  Ophelia.  She 
gave  a  performance  that  surprised  even  the 
veteran  tragedian,  who  had  so  constantly 
and  conscientiously  believed  in  her.  She 
chanted  the  mad  scene  in  a  plaintive,  un- 
earthly tone  that  robbed  it  of  the  physical 
morbidness  so  hard  to  avoid  in  the  acting 
of  this  passage,  bringing  out  all  the  magic  of 
Shakespeare's  poetry,  and  holding  her  audi- 
ence enchained. 


240     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

Miss  Hamper's  Ophelia,  perfected  since 
that  night  in  Ottawa,  is  the  most  beautiful 
still  of  her  characterizations,  and,  girl 
though  she  is,  it  yields  to  no  Ophelia  that 
has  been  seen  on  the  American  stage  in 
recent  years.  The  scene  in  which  Laertes 
returns  and  finds  the  delicate  mind  of  his 
sister  in  ruin  is  a  peculiarly  pathetic  mo- 
ment in  which  Miss  Hamper  wrings  tears 
from  eyes  that  had  not  believed  they  could 
be  so  stirred  by  any  passage  Shakespearean. 
Miss  Hamper  presents  the  desolate  and 
pitiable  wreck  of  what  once  was  an  en- 
chanting girl.  The  aged  William  Winter, 
whose  critical  faculties  never  spoiled  a  feel- 
ing heart,  but  who  seldom  wept  in  a  theatre, 
detecting,  as  he  did,  the  false  ring  in  most 
acting,  became  wrapped  up  in  this  girl's 
Ophelia,  and  paid  Miss  Hamper  the  tribute 
of  his  tears.  This  was  only  a  few  months 
before  his  death.  Miss  Hamper  is  prouder 
of  those  tears  from  the  eyes  of  the  veteran 
critic  than  of  the  glowing  words  that  have 
frequently  been  written  in  praise  of  her 
yellow-haired  Dane. 

Another  notable  moment  in  the  acting 
of  this  youngest  of  Shakespearean  leading 
women  is  the  fall  she  makes  to  the  stage  in 
the  potion  scene  of  "Romeo  and  Juliet." 
Clad  all  in  gauzy,  shimmering  white,  she 
sinks  to  the  floor  as  lightly  and  gracefully 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     241 

as  a  pillar  of  foam  melting  into  itself.  She 
has  solved  one  of  the  most  difficult  of  stage 
problems,  the  problem  of  falling  without 
awkwardness,  without  making  the  audience 
wonder  if  the  player  is  really  hurt,  and  with- 
out detracting  from  the  illusion  of  death  by 
a  too-obvious  care  not  to  break  a  bone. 

Miss  Hamper's  development  on  the  foun- 
dation of  a  grace  and  beauty  as  rare  in  a 
feminine  physique  as  her  intense  ambition 
to  act  is  common  in  a  feminine  heart,  has 
been  along  lines  of  Mr.  Mantell's  own 
sketching.  He  got  hold  of  her  before  she 
had  been  spoiled  by  any  previous  training 
—  before  she  had  learned  the  thousand  and 
one  things  necessary  to  unlearn  before  the 
player  of  the  modern  type  can  be  developed 
into  a  classicist.  From  his  own  long  stage 
experience,  Mr.  Mantell  has  evolved  a  set 
of  ideas  as  to  what  a  Shakespearean  actress 
should  be  like,  and,  with  the  art  of  another 
Svengali,  though  with  love  as  the  potent 
factor  instead  of  hypnotic  suggestion,  he 
is  visualizing  his  ideas  in  a  new  Trilby,  who 
is  not,  however,  the  empty  automaton  that 
was  the  old.  Miss  Hamper,  by  hard  and 
conscientious  study  and  constant  rehearsal, 
has  developed  in  seven  years  from  one  of  a 
mob  of  stage-struck  girls  "crazy"  to  go  on 
as  an  unprogrammed  bit  of  a  stage  picture 
into  the  accepted  and  acceptable  leading 


242     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

woman  of  the  greatest  tragedian  of  his 
time. 

The  week  of  Miss  Hamper's  debut  as 
Ophelia  in  Ottawa  was  also  made  memorable 
in  a  social  way  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mantell  by 
a  luncheon  with  Premier  Borden  of  Canada, 
an  old  friend  and  enthusiastic  admirer  of 
the  tragedian. 

It  was  during  the  summer  that  ensued, 
that  Mr.  Mantell  and  I,  at  a  rustic  table  of 
the  tragedian's  own  designing,  under  the 
great  trees  of  "Brucewood,"  searched 
through  his  old  note  books,  papers  and 
records  for  the  material  from  which  the 
earlier  parts  of  this  biography  have  been 
written. 

This  summer,  too,  Fritz  Leiber,  Mr. 
Mantell's  leading  man  for  nearly  a  decade, 
became  his  next-door  neighbor  in  Atlantic 
Highlands.  Of  Leiber's  achievements  as  an 
actor,  Mr.  Mantell  is  proud.  "He  is  the 
only  young  man  visible  in  the  theatrical 
world  who  shows  promise  of  developing 
into  a  great  Shakespearean  tragedian,"  the 
veteran  has  repeatedly  told  me. 

The  opening  night  of  the  new  season, 
October  6,  1913,  at  the  Alvin  Theatre, 
Pittsburgh,  marked  the  formal  debut  of 
Miss  Hamper  as  Mr.  Mantell's  leading 
woman.  It  was  on  this  same  night,  too, 
that  Ethel  Mantell  made  her  first  stage 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     243 

appearance  in  a  speaking  part.  The  play 
was  "King  John."  Miss  Hamper  appeared 
as  the  persecuted  Prince  Arthur  and  Miss 
Mantel!  as  Lady  Blanche. 

The  "King  John"  tour  was  a  gratifying 
success  from  coast  to  Coast.  (No,  'tis  not  a 
printer's  error  —  that  setting  up  of  the 
first  "coast"  with  a  lower-case  letter,  and 
the  second  with  a  capital.  For,  on  this  very 
tour  with  Mantell,  I  was  instructed  by 
a  patriotic  stenographer  in  San  Francisco, 
which  was  then  in  preparation  for  the  great 
Exposition,  that  "coast  to  Coast"  must  be 
so  written,  and  not  otherwise.  It  is  another 
case  of  city  speaking  jealously  to  city,  or 
section  to  section,  after  the  manner  of 
Kipling  and  O.  Henry.)  This  prosperous 
tour  was  made  in  the  last  normal  theatrical 
season  the  civilized  world  has  known  to 
date. 

For,  in  the  succeeding  summer  of  1914, 
the  World  War  broke  out.  Mantell,  with 
many  misgivings,  remembering  the  hard- 
ships that  attended  the  Spanish-American 
War,  though  with  a  cheerfulness  resembling 
that  of  his  elderly  sister  residing  in  Holland, 
opened  his  new  season  in  Atlantic  City. 

First,  a  word  about  the  sister  in  Holland. 
She,  a  woman  well  past  fourscore,  wrote  her 
"kid  brother"  shortly  after  the  German 
invasion  of  Belgium  just  across  the  Dutch 


244     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

frontier,  and  with  the  distant  cannon  boom- 
ing in  her  ear.  Mr.  Mantell  showed  me  her 
letter,  with  a  huge  chuckle,  during  an  auto 
spin  late  in  August  from  Atlantic  Highlands 
to  Long  Branch.  She  told  how  the  Teutonic 
invaders  had  laid  waste  with  fire  and  sword 
the  beautiful  Belgian  homes  she  had  often 
visited  only  a  few  thousand  yards  from 
where  she  was  living.  "I  may  myself  have 
to  fly  at  any  moment,"  she  continued, 
"but  isn't  it  wonderful,  Bob,  that  God  has 
spared  me  to  see  the  greatest  war  the  world 
has  ever  known ! " 

"She  weighs  all  of  three  hundred  pounds, 
besides,"  chuckled  the  tragedian.  "Imagine 
her  flying!" 

The  first  five  weeks  of  the  new  season, 
starting  with  Atlantic  City  and  proceeding 
north  through  the  smaller  cities  of  New 
Jersey  and  New  York  State,  justified  Man- 
telTs  worst  fears  of  financial  reverses.  Wall 
Street,  and,  with  it,  all  America,  were  on 
the  verge  of  a  panic,  anxiously  awaiting 
developments  in  Europe.  People  clung  to 
their  money,  not  knowing  what  was  to 
happen  next,  and,  as  usual,  the  theatre  was 
the  first  and  principal  sufferer. 

It  was  not  until  after  five  weeks  of  the 
kind  of  business  Mantell  used  to  experience 
in  the  days  of  exile  that  fortune  changed. 
Queerly  enough,  the  turn  came  in  Montreal, 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     245 

which,  though  directly  involved  in  the  war, 
was  cooler-headed  than  New  York.  An 
excellent  week  in  Toronto  followed. 

The  company  then  recrossed  the  border 
into  the  United  States.  By  this  time, 
financial  America  was  beginning  to  regain 
its  equilibrium,  though  still  dizzy  from  the 
bludgeon  stroke  of  war.  Good,  bad  and 
indifferent  weeks  followed  each  other  in 
crazy  procession.  This  kept  up  until  the 
vacation  period,  which,  usually  in  all  sea- 
sons, including  the  best,  is  the  dull  two 
weeks  before  Christmas.  Mantell  closed  for 
the  vacation  in  Washington  even  with  the 
board,  and  with  the  proud  distinction  of 
being  one  of  the  very  few  theatrical  attrac- 
tions that  had  been  able  to  weather  the 
storm.  Nearly  everything  sent  out  from 
New  York  had  closed  with  unseemly  haste. 

A  pleasant  incident  of  the  week  in  Wash- 
ington was  a  social  call  paid  the  tragedian 
by  William  Jennings  Bryan,  then  Secretary 
of  State.  Mr.  Bryan,  after  witnessing  a 
performance  of  "Hamlet,**  asked  to  be 
conducted  back  scenes,  and  there,  in  the 
star's  dressing  room,  congratulated  him 
warmly  on  the  excellence  of  his  acting. 

Mr.  Mantell  resumed  his  tour  in  Boston 
Christmas  week.  Business  gradually  be- 
came better  and  more  stable  with  the  return 
of  financial  confidence,  and  the  remainder 


246     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

of  the  season,  spent  almost  entirely  east 
of  the  Mississippi,  proved  profitable,  though 
not  to  the  degree  to  which  Mr.  Mantell  in 
late  years  had  become  accustomed. 

During  the  summer,  there  was  booked  a 
tour  for  the  approaching  season  to  start 
in  Los  Angeles  early  in  September.  But  in 
August,  the  prospects  for  the  theatres  were 
still  so  uncertain  because  of  war  conditions, 
that  Mr.  Brady  and  Mr.  Mantell  decided 
to  give  up  the  long  trip  to  the  Coast  for 
the  time  being,  and  Mr.  Mantell  accepted 
a  very  flattering  offering  from  William  Fox 
to  go  into  moving  pictures  for  a  few  months. 

This  was  a  new  experience  for  the  actor, 
who  all  these  years  had  been  training  the 
wonderful  voice  with  which  he  had  been 
gifted  by  nature  to  the  remarkable  degree 
of  perfection  to  which  it  had  now  attained. 
The  new  art  of  the  screen  took  no  notice  of 
vocal  accomplishments.  The  expected  hap- 
pened. Without  his  magnificent  voice, 
Mantell  could  do  no  sort  of  justice  to  his 
genius.  Though  he  gave  highly  creditable 
performances,  his  pantomime,  after  the 
manner  of  the  old  stage  technique,  was  too 
quiet  and  subdued  for  the  screen.  The  actor 
who  could  hold  his  own  with  Booth  and 
Irving  in  the  legitimate  theatre  was  dis- 
tinctly out-classed  by  Francis  X.  Bushman 
and  Charlie  Chaplin ! 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     247 

But  the  screen  engagement  was  produc- 
tive of  a  very  agreeable  sojourn  in  Jamaica, 
whither  Mr.  Fox  sent  his  classic  star  with  a 
director  who  was  assisting  likewise  in  the 
making  there  of  the  Annette  Kellermann 
water  pictures.  Mr.  Mantell  and  Miss 
Hamper,  who  was  also  included  in  the  Fox 
contract  on  a  handsome  salary,  found  the 
people  of  Jamaica  hospitable  to  a  degree, 
and  they  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  comforts 
and  luxuries  of  the  island. 

Miss  Hamper,  with  her  big  brown  eyes 
and  black  hair,  just  escaped  being  de- 
veloped by  the  Fox  studios  into  another 
Theda  Bara.  "Here  we  have  labored  all 
these  years  to  keep  you  sweet  and  gentle," 
said  Miss  Genevieve  Reynolds,  the  stately 
Queen  Mother  of  Hamlet,  to  Mrs.  Mantell, 
after  seeing  one  of  her  pictures,  "and  you 
almost  went  and  converted  yourself  into  a 
vampire  when  our  backs  were  turned!" 

The  picture  engagement  was  prolonged 
into  the  early  days  of  1916,  the  Shakespear- 
ean Tercentenary  year.  Mr.  Mantell  had 
considered  a  number  of  elaborate  plans  for 
the  celebration  of  the  great  anniversary, 
among  them  a  tour  of  the  English-speaking 
world,  including  Australia,  India,  South 
Africa  and  England  itself.  But  the  World 
War  had  intervened.  All  plans  for  a  huge 
celebration,  both  in  England  and  America, 


248     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

discussed  by  classic  stars  for  a  score  of 
years,  had  to  be  abandoned,  and  the  cele- 
brations dwindled  into  scattered  local  fetes. 

Mr.  Mantell's  contribution  was  a  modest 
one.  He  and  Margaret  Anglin,  under  the 
direction  of  James  Shesgreen,  and  on  invita- 
tion of  a  community  organization  in  St. 
Louis,  staged  a  great  open-air  production  of 
"As  You  Like  It"  in  Forest  Park.  Miss 
Anglin  was  the  Rosalind,  and  Mr.  Mantell 
gave  his  first  and  last  performance  of  the 
striking  role  of  the  melancholy  Jacques. 
Frederick  Lewis  played  Orlando  and  Miss 
Hamper,  Phoebe.  The  engagement  ex- 
tended through  two  weeks  in  May,  and,  in 
spite  of  being  partially  marred  by  rain, 
attracted  huge  crowds.  A  feature  was  a 
community  prologue  preceding  the  play, 
in  which  some  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred 
young  people  of  St.  Louis  engaged  in  old 
English  folk  dances  on  the  enormous  rustic 
stage  representing  the  Forest  of  Arden. 

After  a  prolonged  rest  at  Atlantic  High- 
lands, Mr.  Mantell  returned  to  the  legiti- 
mate stage  in  the  early  part  of  November. 
The  opening  week  in  Montreal  was  signal- 
ized by  the  first  appearance  of  Miss  Hamper 
as  Lady  Macbeth.  Miss  Hamper,  who  is  of 
slight  and  elegant  physique,  had  shunned 
heretofore  the  role  of  Lady  Macbeth,  the 
most  mature  and  difficult  of  Shakespeare's 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     249 

heroines,  leaving  her  for  an  actress  in  the 
company  of  the  type  known  in  repertoire 
companies  as  the  "heavy  woman."  Miss 
Florence  Auer,  who  had  last  filled  this  posi- 
tion with  the  Mantell  organization,  and 
who  was  re-engaged  for  the  season  about  to 
open,  notified  Mr.  Mantell  she  would  be 
unable  to  join  him  for  two  weeks,  since  she 
was  playing  with  a  company  that  had 
opened  earlier. 

Mr.  Mantell  decided,  in  consequence,  to 
entrust  Lady  Macbeth  to  Miss  Hamper. 
After  four  "intensive"  rehearsals,  the 
youthful  Mrs.  Mantell  went  on  in  Montreal 
and  "made  good."  Her  Lady  Macbeth,  for 
which  Mr.  Mantell  had  feared  because  of 
her  slight  physique,  gained  in  power  and 
intensity  as  the  season  proceeded,  and  only 
a  few  weeks  ago,  in  the  present  autumn  of 
1917,  it  stood  successfully  the  acid  test  of 
Boston.  One  critic,  Miss  Salita  Solano, 
sometimes  called  "the  female  Alan  Dale" 
from  the  caustic  qualities  of  her  pen  (or  is 
it  a  typewriter?)  was  especially  generous 
with  her  praise. 

The  season  of  Mantell 's  return  to  the 
legitimate  stage  was  again  spent  east  of  the 
Mississippi  Kiver  for  the  most  part,  the 
tour  extending  no  farther  west  than  Minne- 
apolis. An  interesting  incident  of  the  season 
was  the  engagement  by  Mr.  Mantell  of  his 


250     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

old  friend,  James  B.  Dickson,  as  company 
manager.  Mr.  Dickson  was  the  partner  of 
the  late  Joseph  Brooks  in  the  old  firm  of 
Brooks  &  Dickson,  who,  back  in  1882,  as 
owners  of  "The  World"  and  "The  Romany 
Rye,"  presented  Man  tell  for  the  first  time 
in  America  as  a  leading  man.  This  firm,  too, 
is  credited  with  having  originated  the  plan 
of  a  circuit  of  theatres  booked  from  a 
central  office  that  afterward  developed  into 
the  Klaw  &  Erlanger  syndicate. 

Mr.  Dickson,  who  continues  to  date  as 
Mr.  Mantell's  manager,  numbers  among  his 
favorite  stories  one  that  concerns  John 
Stetson,  who  brought  Mantell  to  America 
in  1882  to  head  a  Shakespearean  company 
he  intended  to  install  in  Booth's  Theatre, 
New  York,  which  he  had  just  taken  over 
after  Edwin  Booth  had  met  with  financial 
reverses,  and  which  he  was  determined  to 
run  as  a  classic  playhouse  in  rivalry  of 
Booth  himself.  Stetson,  who  was  noted  for 
his  showmanship  more  than  for  his  Latin 
education,  had  suffered  severely  from  sea- 
sickness on  his  return  voyage  to  America, 
after  signing  in  England  the  contract  with 
Mantell.  It  had  been  his  first  trip  abroad. 
Stepping  ashore,  he  announced  firmly  to 
some  friends  that  nevermore  would  he  take 
his  feet  off  "terra  cotta ! "  It  was  the  failure 
of  Stetson  to  put  through  his  plan  for  a 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     251 

Shakespearean  stock  company  in  Booth's 
Theatre  that  led  to  the  transfer  of  his 
contract  with  Mantell  to  the  firm  of  Brooks 
&  Dickson. 

In  Albany  in  the  February  of  this  season, 
Mrs.  Mantell  gave  her  husband  a  birthday 
dinner.  William  Winter  was  the  guest  of 
honor.  In  spite  of  his  extreme  age  and  weak 
condition,  the  great  critic  came  with  his 
son,  Jefferson,  from  New  York  to  Albany, 
the  city  of  Mantell's  American  debut  forty 
years  ago.  It  was  a  little  select  party  of 
intimate  spirits.  Until  almost  the  dawn  of 
the  morning,  the  aged  Mr.  Winter  enter- 
tained the  company  with  reminiscences  of 
the  stage  in  the  days  when  classic  acting 
was  in  flower.  Mantell,  whom  he  always 
regarded  with  a  fatherly  love,  he  compli- 
mented lavishly  as  a  kindred  soul  to  the 
great  tragedians  that  had  passed  into  the 
dim  Beyond.  He  recalled  the  Ophelias  of 
the  past,  and  placed  beside  them  Miss 
Hamper,  who  had  touched  him  to  tears 
with  her  performance  of  the  gentle  sweet- 
heart of  Hamlet. 

"Bob,  I  wept  —  I  couldn't  help  it,"  he 
told  Mantell. 

It  was  William  Winter's  last  social  engage- 
ment —  the  last  of  hundreds  filled  by  the 
best  lover  of  the  stage  America  has  ever 
had,  with  the  brilliant  stars  that  have 


252     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

adorned  the  theatre  —  Booth,  Forrest,  Ir- 
ving, Mary  Anderson,  Charlotte  Cushman, 
and  the  rest.  They  all  knew  him  intimately, 
and  they  loved  him  as  he  loved  them.  Only 
a  few  months  after  the  Albany  dinner,  Mr. 
Winter  died.  Mr.  Mantell  was  at  his  bed- 
side four  days  before  the  end  came,  but  the 
critic  was  too  far  on  his  journey  into  the 
penumbral  shadows  of  death  to  recognize 
his  friend,  who  always  to  him  was  a  mere 
youngster. 

The  present  season  of  1917-18  began  in 
Boston  on  the  night  of  September  17.  An 
amusing  "piece  of  business"  was  injected, 
with  characteristic  resourcefulness,  into 
"  Richard  III'*  on  the  Saturday  night  of 
the  opening  week.  It  was  the  first  perform- 
ance of  "Richard'*  of  the  season,  and  was 
peculiarly  buoyant  and  electrifying,  being 
above  the  average  of  even  MantelFs  al- 
ways admirable  characterization  of  the 
Duke  of  Gloster.  As  the  tragedian  entered 
a  scene  toward  the  middle  of  the  play,  he 
was  struck  all  of  a  sudden  by  the  knowledge 
that  he  had  "gone  up  in  his  lines."  There 
was  nobody  in  the  wings  at  his  side  to 
prompt  him,  and,  as  he  had  the  stage  all  to 
himself,  there  was  nobody  there  either  to 
"hand  him  the  cue."  He  shambled  briskly 
along,  muttering  to  himself  and  looking  up 
into  the  trees  that  constituted  the  scenery 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     «53 

at  the  rear.  It  was  a  refreshing  moment  to 
all  of  us  out  front  familiar  with  the  "busi- 
ness" of  the  play,  but  who  had  never  seen 
this  before,  and  to  the  audience  in  general, 
which  was  delighted  with  Richard's  mum- 
bled cogitations,  fitted  with  admirable 
humor  by  Mantell  into  the  character  of  the 
satiric  hunchback.  When  the  Duke  of 
Gloster  got  to  the  center  of  the  stage,  he 
began  speaking  correctly  the  lines  of  Shake- 
speare! 

I'm  going  to  let  that  Boston  audience  now 
into  a  secret  Mr.  Mantell  imparted  to  me 
at  rehearsal  next  day.  Here's  what  Richard 
was  muttering: 

"Oh,  the  devil,  what  do  I  say  here! 
What  do  I  say  here! " 

It  was  not  until  the  actor  had  looked 
carefully  at  the  scenery  and  got  into 
the  center  of  the  old  familiar  stage  setting 
that  the  lines  came  back  to  him  automat- 
ically. 

For  several  seasons  past,  Mr.  Mantell  had 
been  playing  under  the  direction  of  Mr. 
Brady  on  a  verbal  agreement,  their  formal 
contract,  drawn  up  on  the  triumphant 
re-entry  of  the  tragedian  into  New  York 
after  his  long  exile,  having  expired.  On 
November  10  in  this  present  season  in 
Trenton,  N.  J.,  they  parted  company.  The 
separation  was  amicable.  Brady,  as  presi- 


254     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

dent  of  the  World  Film  Corporation,  had 
become  one  of  the  biggest  national  factors 
in  the  motion  picture  industry,  and  in 
late  years  had  devoted  less  and  less  of 
his  time  to  the  legitimate  stage.  Mantell 
had  become  comparatively  independent  in 
fortune.  Both  concluded  it  would  be  best 
for  their  mutual  interests  to  separate.  The 
tragedian  is  now  touring  under  his  own 
management. 

In  the  "progress"  through  New  England 
and  the  Middle  West,  incidents  have  tran- 
spired whose  culling  could  serve  for  an 
indefinite  prolongation  of  this  farewell  chap- 
ter Number  Twenty -Three.  But  if  I  have 
not  told  enough  in  all  these  pages  to  con- 
vince you  that  Robert  Mantell  (who  insists 
that  his  name  be  put  in  the  electric  lights 
"Robert  B.  Mantell,'*  in  order  that  the 
thirteen  letters  in  "Robert  Mantell"  scare 
not  away  prospective  customers),  is  a 
human  being  "even  as  you  and  I,"  and  not 
solely  an  artistic  freak  of  nature,  then  the 
task  must  be  given  over  as  hopeless  in  my 
hands. 

Let  me  pass  then  to  the  last  scene  of  all, 
which  ends,  for  the  nonce,  this  strange, 
eventful  history. 

A  new  Robert  Bruce  Mantell  has  made 
his  appearance,  the  son  of  the  present  Mrs. 
Mantell.  He  was  born  at  the  summer  home 


TIIK  TWO  RORKRT  BRUCE "MANTELLS 


ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE     255 

of  Mr.  Brady  at  Allenhurst,  a  few  miles 
down  the  Jersey  coast  from  Atlantic  High- 
lands, September  2,  1912,  during  the  sum- 
mer rehearsals.  Mr.  Mantell,  called  from 
rehearsal  room,  heard  the  cry  before  he  saw 
the  child. 

"It's  a  man,"  he  said:  "no  woman  ever 
had  a  voice  like  that!" 

Then,  after  gazing  at  the  sturdy  young- 
ster, he  added:  "I'm  going  to  make  a 
tragedian  of  him.  He's  to  be  the  great 
Mantell!" 

Robert  Bruce  Mantell,  Jr.,  made  his 
"stage  debut"  on  the  afternoon  of  March 
11,  1914,  in  Indianapolis,  at  the  handsome 
Murat  Theatre,  where  three  years  later, 
November  21,  1917,  his  mother,  as  Juliet, 
made  her  first  appearance  as  a  "featured" 
actress.  His  father  carried  him  onto  the 
stage  at  the  fall  of  the  final  curtain  on 
"The  Merchant  of  Venice."  The  two 
Robert  Bruce  Mantells  appeared  between 
the  folds  of  the  maroon  plush  and  took  a  call 
together.  The  younger  Mantell  waved  his 
tiny  hand  to  the  applauding  audience. 

Robert  Bruce  Mantell,  Sr.,  has  auto- 
graphed a  photograph  of  himself  to  Robert 
Bruce  Mantell,  Jr.  A  doubtful  meaning  in 
the  inscription,  resulting  from  the  omission 
of  a  punctuation  mark,  was  not  intended 
at  the  time,  but  the  elder  Mantell,  after 


256     ROBERT  MANTELL'S  ROMANCE 

the   discovery  of  the  joke,  allowed  it  to 
stand: 

To  My  Dear  Little  Son  Bruce 
God  Protect  Him  Always 
From  His  Loving  Father. 


HERE    ENDS    THE    RECORD    OF    AN 
UNENDED    CAREER. 


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COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

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